


and our souls; they were athunder

by PetrichorPerfume



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Dean/Cas Big Bang (Supernatural), Dean/Cas Big Bang 2020 (Supernatural), First Kiss, First Time, Forest Sex, Forests, Future Fic, M/M, Magic, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Nymphs & Dryads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:13:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27041788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetrichorPerfume/pseuds/PetrichorPerfume
Summary: The Wilds of Battlegrave are bordered by a mountain pass on the North and a sea to the East. In this vast and sprawling forest, a young dryad called Dean and an ancient water nymph named Castiel must learn to put aside their deep-seated differences and reconcile the demons of a half-remembered history if they are to have a chance of finding love in one another. Will their love survive the uncovering of long-buried memories from a time since passed, or will the truth prove to be their ruination?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Michael/Adam Milligan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 40
Collections: DCBB 2020





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written for the Dean/Cas Big Bang 2020 - my first-ever Big Bang! 
> 
> First of all, I'd like to give a big shout-out to my artist, Junes AKA junuy. Her work is sprinkled throughout this story. You can find her other work [here.](https://jununy.tumblr.com/) And you can find the master post for her art [here.](https://jununy.tumblr.com/private/632093522094440448/tumblr_ExOocdSGPlhrV09A0)
> 
> All chapter titles are from the poem “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir Walter Raleigh. 
> 
> Without further ado, let's get to the story!

First came the crocuses, then the bluets and the redbuds, and finally the Harbingers of Spring, blooming all across the forest floor and in the meadow where the deer came to graze, famished after the long, difficult winter. The bears lumbered out of their dens, their cubs spilling out of the places they’d slept through the winter within, tumbling down small hills and splashing in the streams fed by glacial runoff from the mountain range that bordered the forest to the north. Hawks swooped in and out of the trees, looking for a tasty morsel of food, while the chipmunks scrambled to the safety of their burrows. As dawn paled the sky, the owls began to hoot, softly singing one another an ancient lullaby. All through the forest, the sounds of the slow-waking world shrugging off the last vestiges of sleep echoed and returned.

The river burbled and bubbled. Deep within, a naiad was waking from his slumber. The river’s protector and guardian, he’d had little work to do during the past winter, which had been so desperately cold that the banks of his body of water had grown far too icy for animals to come to drink. They had, instead, relied on snowmelts and the glacial runoffs that came down fresh and full of minerals from the mountain pass.

He opened his eyes. Through the flowing waters, he could see a young dryad approaching. In one fluid motion, he leapt up to the surface as though propelled by invisible wings.


	2. If All The World And Love Were Young

The water was cool and sweet, and tasted of soft rains with just a hint of lavender. Dean lowered his lips to the river’s edge once more, drinking deeply of the bounty of the land. He was one of the stewards of the wild, and took his role quite seriously. He might be a new addition to this forest, but that was all the more reason to pay his respects to the river’s guardian.

“Be careful,” his mother had said when he’d awaken from his slumber half-drunk with thirst, and insisted that he must go to the river. “The water nymph is from the time before the Great Awakening.”

Dean had rolled his eyes at that. Like many of the younger generation of dryads, he took stories of ‘the Great Awakening’ with a grain of salt. It was true that there hadn’t always been dryads in these wilds, that much was certain. If there had always been, the ancient trees wouldn’t be troubled by the kind of blight they were, and their trunks wouldn’t be so sooty. There must have been some great fire, it was presumed, that had killed the previous generations of their kind. But that didn’t explain why there was no evidence of their existence whatsoever – no hordes of acorns hidden away in trees too high up for the squirrels to reach, no burnt patches indicative of the ruins of woven shelters, no meticulously kept patch of wildflowers where one or another of their kind had tried to woo their beloved. If there had been others, before the so-called Great Awakening, they’d left no trace of their existence.

These were the kind of thoughts that were swirling around Dean’s mind as he drank. There was no sign that there had been dryads, but this water nymph might remember.

“Hello?” He called out. “Mr. Nymph?”

The water burbled in response, and Dean grinned. “I was wondering… I mean,” Dean paused, his mother’s voice echoing in his mind. _Remember your manners, Dean._ “Thank you for the water. I just woke up and I was so thirsty I could have drunk a whole horn of mead by myself.” He smiled at the image that conjured in his mind. “I was wondering if you could tell me about the Great Awakening.”

The water went stock-still. The breeze made no ripples upon the surface. Not a single fish dared disturb the peace that had befallen the river, which had stopped in its motions towards the sea.

“I mean… Before.”

Dean found himself being pulled in, the cold water filling his lungs and inciting a momentary lapse into panic. He spluttered as he swam up to the surface. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, heaving himself back onto the bank. “Forget I asked.”

“I just might,” said a man on the banks.

Dean had a sinking feeling. “Who are you?”

The man had a smile that came and went like the tides. “I’m the one who pulled you into my waters.” He began to circle Dean. “And I’m not afraid to do it again.”

A doe came to the river, unperturbed by their presence. “Are you going to pull her in, too?”

“Not unless she starts asking stupid questions,” the man said, steely blue eyes peering into Dean’s.

  
“What’s your name?” Dean hazarded to ask.

“What’s it to you?” The water nymph asked.

“You’re beautiful,” Dean found himself saying, almost against his will. “I wish to know the name of every beautiful creature in these wilds.” He raised his chin in defiance, as if daring the other to push him back into the waters after such a compliment.

“My name is Castiel,” said the water nymph, wading back into the waters. “But you’d do well to forget me.”

With that, he retreated back into the life-giving waters.

“Castiel,” Dean said, enjoying the taste and feel of the syllables as he spoke them. “I’m going to call you Cas.”

Deep beneath the surface, a hint of a smile appeared on Castiel’s face, then was gone.


	3. The Coral Clasps And Amber Studs

Dean came back to their dwelling still plucking river plants out of his hair. Their abode sometimes seemed too small for the three of them, but something in the air made put a spring in his step, and he looked around at it with a new appreciation. The building itself had been woven in another season with reeds from the edge of the river. It made him think of Castiel. For some strange reason, the thought of the nymph put a smile on his face, and he went about the work of the day whistling.

First, he summoned the rabbits and fed them the last of the little pieces of dried carrot they’d saved from the last harvest. Next, he put an offering by the altar for the Gods, then he tided a bit, making the cots back up, and rolling the skins they slept under into neat pile.

He went to the cellar where they kept their food and potions, and gathered the most recent vials that his brother had laid out for him, all neatly labeled in pictographs that were drawn neatly yet hurriedly, and he made a mental note to remind the other to draw slower next time.

He strung out woven ropes and sprinkled them with a sugary substance that Sam had brewed that served to attract fireflies when darkness fell. That particular brew was kept in little yellow bottles labeled with cartoon fireflies, while the purple vials held enchanted seeds that were labeled with a small star.

He grinned at the sight of them. They were for special occasions, he knew. But wasn’t meeting a new being in the forest occasion enough for celebration?

Carefully, he shook a single seed out of the vial. He’d plant one and bring its fruits to Cas when he was done with his chores. The seeds each took hours to bless, consecrate, and enchant, but they bloomed within minutes. In return for one’s hard work, they gave fruit that sparkled and glowed and, best of all, tasted like pie.

“You’re home,” his brother’s voice sounded from the entryway just as Dean was finishing the washing up.

“Ha-ha,” Dean responded. “Very funny.” As the eldest son of the family, it was his job to see to the upkeep of their home, forage in the forest surrounding their dwelling, and feed the animals as well as his family. As his younger brother, Sam got to do cool stuff like go out hunting, and knew more Magic than Dean would ever. “Mom come home with you?”

“You’re lucky she didn’t,” Sam said disapprovingly. “It’s the first day of the season, and you planted our most sacred crop.”

“I can explain,” Dean said, and then realized that he couldn’t, at least not without revealing the sudden turmoil in his chest, a sort of half-beat and skip in his heart.

“Well?” Sam frowned down at him, and Dean once more cursed their height difference.

Dean turned away, lest his brother catch the sudden blush that had found its way onto his cheeks. “There might be someone…” He hesitated, dragging the heel of his foot along the packed ground that made up their floor.

“Someone? Another dryad?” Sam’s face lit up. “What’s his name? Where is he from? Have I met him? Is it that fire spirit that came along to trade last spring? Crowley, was it? Is he back?”

Dean clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Calm yourself. Deep breaths.” Just because love was Sam’s favorite emotion didn’t mean his brother had to hyperventilate over it. He took his own advice, gulping in a deep lungful of air.

“Yes, there is someone. His name is Cas. He lives by the river; I doubt you’d have seen him. He seems like he keeps to himself.” At that point, he hit Sam across the head. “And, no, it’s not Crowley. I told you, I was never into that- that scoundrel,” he hissed, settling on a word that only half-described the fire spirit; the other half would need to be a curse-word and his brother was likely to tell Mom about his dirty mouth.

“Cas? Why does that sound so familiar?”

Dean blushed harder. “I don’t know.”

“Is he new to the forest?”

“Doubt it,” Dean said, without thinking. A lightbulb went off in Sam’s head.

“Cas? As in, ‘Castiel?’ The water nymph?”

“Oh, so you have met him,” Dean said, turning away once more, this time with the pretense of tidying in mind. He’d done all of the real tidying earlier, so he just began to rearrange their things.

“Dean, please don’t tell me the fruit is for _Castiel_.”

“And what if I did?”

“He’s dangerous,” Sam said, grabbing Dean by the wrist, startling him into dropping a clay vase. It was one from the Before Times, and he cursed colorfully. The art of making them was lost, and though it was largely just for decoration, it was still a priceless object of art and beauty that Dean was sorry to see shattered.

“Dean,” Sam groaned. His brother sank down to the floor beside him, and despite his irritation, Dean had to admit that he had a pretty cool younger brother. Most sibling pairs in the forest didn’t get along as well as they did. It was Dean’s duty to carry along the traditions of their people – or so it had been imprinted into him from a young age by his father, who he’d loved dearly in those days before the forest fire stole them from him.

A memory of that night hovered at the edges of his visions, and for a moment he could swear he could smell smoke, feel the flames licking at him as he ran through the burning forest, limbs afire, calling Sam’s name…

“Dean!” Sam’s voice penetrated the fugue. It clearly wasn’t the first time the other had spoken his name.

Dean shook himself out the vision. “Yeah?” He said, softly. He realized that the vase was already all cleaned up, and made to stand.

“You still with me?” His little brother asked, setting down the pieces of the vase and helping Dean stand.

He nodded, and was quiet for a moment. “Thank you,” he said, and Sam sprung forward and wrapped him in a hug.

“Stop it,” Dean grouched, but he smiled anyway.

Sam smiled as they pulled away, and held his brother at arm’s length. “I’m serious, though, Dean,” he said, a warning in his voice. “Be careful around Castiel.”

“I promise,” Dean said, though his heart skipped an uncomfortable beat, its stutter rendering him suddenly breathless. He wasn’t sure ‘careful’ was the word he’d use to describe the way his heart melted at the thought of the nymph. It wasn’t as though he were treading into those uncertain waters; he was plummeting.


	4. Of Cares To Come

Castiel was humming a little tune to himself when he became aware of a looming presence.

“I told you to forget about me,” he said, exasperated, as he rose to the surface.

“Did you?” Came a voice that was distinctly not Dean’s. “As if I could forget my baby brother,” it continued.

“Gabriel,” Castiel greeted. The frustration in his voice melted away slightly. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

Gabriel spread his hands placatingly. “Do I need a reason to come visit my most beloved brother?”

“I suppose not,” Castiel said, shoulders falling.

“Oh, come here, you,” Gabriel said, and waded into the water to embrace Castiel in a big, sodden hug. “What’s gotten into you? You haven’t looked this down since…” At Castiel’s warning look, he trailed off. “You know.”

“Yes,” Castiel admitted. “I know.”

“Come on, Cassy. Tell me what’s on your mind. What else are big brothers for?”

“There’s a dryad,” he blurted out. “A young one. Not more than twenty-five winters old. He came to the river to drink, and asked me about the Before Times, so I… I pulled him into the water, hoping to scare him away.”

“You what?” Gabriel began to crack up. “Oh, that is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long, long time. You know Michael wasn’t exactly born with a funny bone.”

“So I’ve been told,” Castiel said, wading away from Gabriel to free a fish that had gotten caught in some kelp. “But what do you expect? He’s a mountain spirit.”

“Hey, so am I,” Gabriel protested.

“You’re an ice spirit,” Castiel corrected. “Huge difference.”

“Yes, but I _live_ on the mountain,” the other said, gesticulating wildly towards the North, where the mountain runoff fed the river Castiel called home.

“Yes, but your element is still water. Not stone. You can’t just go around calling yourself a mountain spirit whenever it suits you.”

Gabriel shrugged, morosely. “Tell me more about this young dryad,” he said, sitting down upon the banks of the river.

Castiel flopped back into the water. “He is beautiful,” he sighed. “Pure. Innocent. Curious. Smart. Strong.”

Frowning, Gabriel fixed his brother with a firm stare. “I shouldn’t have to tell you of all people that you have to be careful with your heart.”

In a sudden fit of anger, Castiel splashed the other viciously. “I know that! I am being careful; I told him to forget about me. I sent him away, like I know I should have. It’s just that I keep hoping he’ll come back.”

“I hope for your sake that he doesn’t,” Gabriel said darkly. “There are plenty of fire spirits I can introduce you to that have been around for ages; you need someone who understands you. You can’t go galivanting off with a young soul that wasn’t even around when-” He took a deep, calming breath. “All I’m trying to say is, guard your heart. You need someone who is going to understand you.”

“I’ll heed your advice, brother,” Castiel said. “You have always proven yourself wise in the past.” His words said one thing, but the traitorous beat of his heart sung out something quite different.

Gabriel looked around at the gathering twilight. “It’s getting late. I should be back before nightfall if I leave now.”

“Goodbye, Gabriel,” Castiel said.

“So long, little bro,” the other said in parting.

***

Hours passed. The sun set, and Castiel said a brief prayer for his brother’s safe passage through the mountains, back to his home.

The sounds of the forest took on a different timbre. The high-pitched trills of songbirds gave way to the soft snuffling sounds of woodland animals in various stages of waking and sleeping. The owl’s deep hooting served as a wake-up call for all the other nocturnal animals, who slowly made their way out of their burrows, stretched, and made their way to the river to slake their thirst.

He greeted them all, and was rewarded with a soft nuzzle by a racoon, as well as a squeak from a possum. The other animals were not so enterprising, and kept their distance. Castiel respected this; the balance of the forest was a delicate one, as he knew, perhaps better than anyone else alive in the woods. It required striking a fragile peace between all creatures, each of which took only what they needed of the world and from each other, unlike those who had gone before them.

It was in the midst of these ruminations that Castiel became aware of the presence of the dryad.

He slunk out of the water. “I thought I told you to forget about me.”

Dean looked slightly taken aback.

The water nymph shrugged, and began to approach Dean.

“Wait!” the other cried. “Please don’t throw me in. It’s late, and this is my only spare set of clothes that is dry, and most importantly, I brought you pie-fruit!”

“Pie-fruit?” A memory from another life crossed his mind, and was gone.

“Yeah. You know. Fruit. That tastes like pie. I brought it for us to share.”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed.

Dean hastened to add, “I mean, for you. I… Just want a little bite.” He hung his head and shuffled his feet in the leaf litter that surrounded the river.

“Oh.” Castiel was silent for a long while. “I’d hoped you would come back,” he confessed.

“You did?” Dean’s voice went shrill, and Castiel couldn’t help but laugh. It was the first laugh he’d had in a good long while, and it felt good.

“I did,” Castiel agreed. “Come, sit.” He motioned to a spot a few paces away from the river, where they could sit and stay dry.

With much eagerness and fanfare, Dean opened his sack and produced the glowing fruit, which sparkled as the moonlight struck it.

Castiel’s hand hovered over the fruit. “Thank you,” he said, after a long pause. He bit into its soft, sweet flesh, surprised at the succulence of the taste. He groaned in appreciation, and took a moment to lick the juices off his fingers and from his mouth.

Dean grinned. “You’re welcome. Sammy said I shouldn’t have grown it, but what does he know? He was nice enough not to tell Mom, though, so I can’t really complain. He motioned for the fruit, and bemused, Castiel handed it over without protest. 

The other took a sizable bite of fruit. “Mmmm,” he said. “Mmhmmm-mhhhhhhm,” he added, words muffled by his mouthful.

Castiel smiled slightly. “You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” he scolded gently.

“Why not?” Dean said between swallows.

“It’s-” Castiel paused, suddenly struggling to find a good enough reason. All of his explanations hinged on how people used to do things, before- Once again, it felt like he was drowning in the memory of it, that glowing time before the bombs and the fallout and the ash that fell like snow from the sky, choking him, choking everything –

“Cas,” Dean said, gently. “Cas, stay with me.”

With great difficulty, Castiel complied. “Dean?” He asked, blinking open his eyes and seeing the dryad as if for the first time.

There was that smile that Castiel so loved, and those eyes, which were darker, now, in the moonlight, than they had been in the morning’s light.

Castiel blushed, realizing at once that he’d been elsewhere, if only for a moment. “I’m so-”

“It’s alright,” Dean said, before Castiel could apologize. “I get like that too, sometimes. There was a fire, a few years back…” He handed Cas the fruit and hugged his knees to his chest. “Killed my dad.” Sighing, he said, “Sammy always talks me down.”

“Thank you,” Castiel whispered. He took a bite of fruit, savoring both the taste and the distraction. He handed it back to Dean. “Here. Take another bite.”

Dean’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Of course,” Castiel said. “It seems like you went through a great deal of trouble to procure this fruit. You should enjoy it too.”

The dryad took another, albeit smaller, bite of fruit, making appreciative sounds at the smoothness and robustness of the taste of the fruit gliding past his lips, flavors exploding across his tongue.

Together, they shared the fruit, passing it back and forth between them, both of them taking progressively smaller bites until nothing but the pit was left. Dean sucked on it, for a while, just until the last of the flavors were gone. When nothing remained but a faint earthy taste, he stood.

“I should get home.”

“Oh?” Castiel tried to hide the disappointment in his voice, but some of it bled into his tone.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” Dean promised.

“Alright,” Castiel spoke, standing himself and beginning to slink back to the river.

“Cas, wait,” Dean called.

“Yes?”

Dean blushed when Castiel turned back around. “I was wondering if… I could get a goodnight kiss.” He flushed an even brighter shade of red. Something about Castiel made him so forward. It was as if like the water nymph freed him to feel things he’d always longed for and dreamt about.

Castiel stalked forward. “Very well.”

“Oh, um,” Dean chuckled. “I wasn’t really expecting you to say yes, but I would really like it if-” His rambling was cut off by Castiel’s soft lips on his own. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands at first, but they desperately wanted to tangle themselves in Castiel’s hair so he let them. It was gloriously smooth, and he moaned into the other’s mouth.

“Good night, Dean,” Castiel said after they drew apart, such as serene smile gracing his face that Dean felt compelled to say things he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t regret in the morning, so he bit his tongue and nodded.

Once he could trust himself to speak again, Dean whispered, “G’night, Cas.”


	5. Could Youth Last

Dean didn’t come back the next morning, or the morning after that.

So much time passed after the night of the kiss that Castiel half-thought he’d dreamt it up. He woke often on the bottom of the river, gasping water deep into his lungs as he freed himself from the throes of another nightmare.

For a while, he sulked – there was no other word for the way he refused to surface for days. The dryads that weren’t Dean began to wonder at the absence of the surly nymph. They said as much, and Castiel was all too happy to indulge their desire for him to be gone.

He couldn’t stay underwater forever, though, and after about a week of this, he finally broke and climbed onto the banks of the river. The world had changed since he’d last seen it from this angle, and he marveled at the late-blooming flowers and the thickening of the forest’s canopy. A riot of green greeted him, and he shielded his eyes despite the evening’s gentle light.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Gabriel,” Castiel gritted out.

“I heard my baby bro was sulking and I came as soon as I could.”

“I was not _sulking_ ,” Castiel spat. “I was resting my eyes.”

“Ah,” Gabriel said, rocking back on his heels. “I see.”

“You clearly don’t.”

Sighing, his brother flopped down on the grasses, which had also grown longer since the last time Castiel had surfaced.

“Can I be perfectly honest with you?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Castiel huffed, some of his anger dissipating. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Gabriel fixed his eyes on the evening star. “I’ve had my heart broken, too.”

“Gabriel,” the nymph sighed. “I’m not heart-broken. I barely knew that dryad. And I certainly didn’t love him – in fact, I could barely stand him.”

“You’re only saying that because he hasn’t come to see you,” Gabriel said softly.

“Yeah, well…” Castiel came to sit beside Gabriel. “He bought me pie-fruit and said he’d be back in the morning. Then he-” Castiel took a deep breath. “He asked for a goodnight kiss. And I gave him one! I haven’t kissed anyone since-”

“Since everything went to hell,” Gabriel finished for him. He shook his head sadly. “The world as we knew it is but a fading memory. I know that as well as you do. That’s the only reason I told you to guard your heart against the dryad. You need someone who remembers the world as it was, who understands the things we left behind.”

Castiel hesitated for a long moment. “I was going to give him this,” he said quietly. He produced a small locket from his tunic, swung it over his head, and handed it to Gabriel with a gentleness that bordered on reverence.

Gabriel took the fragile object and rotated it so that it shone in the fading light. It was a necklace from the Before Times, from the fading echo of the world as it had been. “Do you think he’d understand?”

Sighing, Castiel shook his head. “I had hoped he might. I suppose I was wrong.”

“Forget him, Castiel,” Gabriel said. “Find someone worthy of something so precious.”

“I thought I had,” the other said, eyes boring into Gabriel’s.

“Come here,” Gabriel said, opening his arms. Castiel fell into them gladly.

“I love you, brother,” Castiel spoke as the last sliver of sunlight bled from the sky.

“Same, kiddo. Same.”

They drew away, and Gabriel clapped Castiel on the shoulder. “Mind if I stay here tonight?”

Castiel’s brows knitted together. “Trouble in paradise?”

Gabriel looked up towards the stars, which were slowly beginning to fade into view as color drained from the sky like the glacial streams from high up on the mountain drained into the valley, feeding the river Castiel protected. “You know how Michael is,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Sighing, Castiel motioned to the drier land up past the river bank. “You can sleep anywhere above the flood line. The animals of the forest won’t harm you, and the others won’t come until dawn.”

Gabriel grinned. “Thanks, Cassie.”

“You should go at first light. The dryads all fear you. I’ve heard them talking.” He paused, measured the weight of his words and finally ground out a terse, “Goodnight.”

The other blinked at him as he began his descent into the river bed.

“Cassie?”

“Yes, Gabriel?” Cas grated out.

“One of these days, you’re going to have to sleep on dry land again.”

“The river is my home,” Castiel said, firmly. “I can sleep on its bed tonight, as I have for the past century. And I can and will continue to do so until I see fit.”

He was gone before Gabriel could say another word, already descending beneath the rushing waters, more turbulent now than they’d been when Gabriel had arrived.

“Love you, too, little bro,” Gabriel said, smile crumpling off his face.

***

First light came and Gabriel rose with it.

He pressed a kiss to the ground just below the flood line, and made his way silently back towards the mountain ranges he called home.

The stars were fading with the dawn, and he watched the last of them dim and disappear, contemplating the world they’d left behind. Nights with Castiel always had sent him back to the fathomless wilds of the past, when they’d been glowing and golden in their youths; but that light had long since fled, and they were left to face the savage dawn of a brave new world – older, perhaps, but scarcely wiser.


	6. A Honey Tongue

Dean was whistling a tune as he made his way down to the river.

He could see that the water nymph was waiting for him as he approached, and as he drew nearer, he noticed the dejected expression that Castiel wore, worry lines marring his smooth, water-slick skin. Dean frowned at the sight.

“Cas?” He called as he began to make his way up the bank.

“Dean,” Castiel greeted, voice monotone. “Sit.”

Both were silent as Dean settled down on the damp ground. Castiel turned to Dean like the moon turns its face to the sun – as though he were the only light in a stricken world.

“Dean,” Castiel repeated. “I need to tell you something. No-” Castiel held up his hand. “I need to tell you everything.”

“Go on,” Dean said, heart pounding in his chest. Something within him stirred, something primal that was afraid of the dark and the monsters that could be lurking just beyond the next shadow.

“The Great Awakening…” For a long moment, Castiel didn’t speak.

  
“Yes?’ Dean prompted.

“I wasn’t always a water nymph. I used to be an angel. And you… You were something else, too, in another life.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Dean, you weren’t always a dryad,” Castiel said.

The words landed like a well-placed blow to the sternum. “But… I grew up in these woods. Me and Sammy and Mom and Dad. I remember it. I’ve spent every one of my summers being a steward to these woods.”

“Dean.” Castiel’s voice was rough. Merciless. “You were in Heaven. But when the angels fell, you fell with us. We… We couldn’t save you all. There were billions of souls there. We didn’t know how to choose, at first.”

“How did you choose?”

When Castiel looked up again, his eyes were rimmed with red. Dean didn’t think he’d ever seen the water nymph – if that was truly what he was – cry. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Dean spread his hands, shrugging to indicate his confusion.

Castiel choked back a sob. “Many of our kind walked on Earth during those last few years. Before the war. You have to understand. We were created to love our Father’s Creation. Any… Any human who had been loved by an angel was chosen. Some angel…” Castiel straightened up. “Well, you were clearly loved. In another life.”

“In another life,” Dean echoed, bitter. “Cas, how do you expect me to believe any of this?”

“Because you remember,” Castiel answered quickly. “You must remember. Please… Remember.”

Their eyes met. “Cas… If what you’re saying is true… I wasn’t loved by just _any_ angel, was I?” Dean took a step forward, firmly planting himself in the river.

“No,” Castiel confirmed. “You weren’t.”

“Say it,” Dean breathed.

Closing his eyes as if defeat, Castiel sighed, “You were loved by many of our kind, but by none more than me.”

Dean stumbled to his feet, and almost fell into the river, so great was his haste to get away. Where, it didn’t matter, as long as he put some distance between himself and Cas.

“Are you saying…”

“I’m saying I knew you. In another life. I know you, Dean Winchester. I’m saying I raised you from perdition, I’m saying I wept over your body when you died. I’m saying Heaven couldn’t sustain the weight of the souls that flooded into our halls – the whole world was a grave. Between the rising waters and the fallout from the bombs… There wasn’t anyone left on Earth. And all that’s left of Heaven is what you see. Me. You. Water and fire and mountain and tree spirits. Dryads and nymphs.”

“Cas…” Dean’s mind was racing almost as fast as his pulse. “Everyone says you’re ancient. You’ve been in that river more winters than I’ve been alive.”

Castiel turned away. “I was tasked with cleansing this river. The process is sustained by what’s left of my Grace. We… We wanted to make the world habitable for you. Here,” he said, tossing Dean the necklace he’d showed Gabriel.

“It’s a necklace,” Dean breathed. “Like the ones we make from flowers, except… It’s made of… Gold. It’s like magic,” he said.

“It’s not magic, Dean,” Castiel sighed. “It’s just jewelry.” He gestured towards the river. “There’s more where that came from. Strewn across the length of this river… Relics.”

Dean put a hand over his mouth.

“Tell me you remember,” Castiel pleaded. “Tell me you know me. Tell me… You love me like you used to.”

Lowering his arm, Dean reached towards Castiel, who didn’t make any move to reach back. “I do love you,” Dean said quietly. “But I don’t remember a damn thing. And I thought I knew who you were… But I guess I was wrong.”

Castiel abruptly took Dean’s outstretched hand just as it was about to fall. “Dean,” Castiel said, voice wavering. “I love you too.” He let go. “But I don’t think I could bear to start again.” His eyes bore into Dean’s. “The man I knew and loved doesn’t know me. It’s like you look at me, and you just… Don’t see me. I want to feel seen.”

Dean began to back away. “And you think I feel seen? You look at me, and all you see is the face of someone you used to love. Someone else. Someone I’m not sure I can replace. And I sure as well don’t want to spend the rest of my life living with his ghost.”

“Wait!” Castiel called when Dean turned and started walking away. “Dean!” He surged forward, but Dean was faster, and took off into the woods. Castiel slowed to a halt at the forest’s edge. “Please,” he whispered, but Dean was already gone.

***

Dean wandered around the forest in a haze. Half-forgotten ghosts of memories began to surface in his mind, but they slipped away as soon as he tried to grasp at them.

By some miracle, he found his way home. It was only then that he realized he still had the necklace in his hands. He picked it up, held it to the light, and drew it close to his chest.

Only then did he let himself fall to the forest floor. He started to sob.

Sam rushed out of their dwelling, took one look at Dean and tutted in that way of his, lowering himself to the ground to wrap his arms around his brother. “Oh, Dean,” he said. “What happened?”

Dean turned to his brother. “It feels like my whole life is a lie,” he whispered.

“Did he break your heart?” Sam asked, gently.

Nodding, Dean searched Sam’s eyes. Someone must have loved him. In another life. An angel. He smiled, tears flooding his eyes.

“Castiel…” Dean let his voice trail off. He wasn’t sure who Sam had been to him in another life, but here, now, they were brothers, and that bond was stronger than anything else he’d ever known. “He told me things. About the Before Times. And the Great Awakening. Things I’m not sure I believe.”

“Dean,” Sam said, cautiously. “Castiel is an ancient being. All the dryads of the forest know that. I’ve met him, once or twice. I told you he was dangerous, but I don’t think he’d lie. Tell me… Tell me what he said to you.”

For a long moment, Dean hesitated. To burden Sam with this knowledge would be wrong – wouldn’t it? Or did he deserve to know? And why hadn’t anyone come calling for his hand, if he truly had been so loved by an angel in a past life? “Come inside, and I’ll tell you everything.”

And so the night went. The moon rose, the crickets began to chirp from their perches low in the grass, the stirring sounds of the waking world preparing for sleep served as a lullaby as Dean told Sam everything he knew, all at once in a rush of words and sentiments. Sam made him tell it again, slower this time, and Dean did.

By the time the stars had faded into view, both brothers emerged to watch them, forever changed. Their comfortable little life had come and gone, ruined in one fell swoop by the horrible truth – they were the remnants of a world gone wrong, and nothing could ever change that.


	7. A Heart Of Gall

“Castiel!” A voice was calling him from the surface. He rose from a fevered sleep and broke through the surface, only to find himself being hauled onto the shore by a furious Gabriel.

“You told him?” Gabriel accused. “After all the times I bid you not to?”

Castiel righted himself, and began to weep. “I’m sorry, brother. I couldn’t help it… His eyes… They’re the same. You can see his soul, Gabriel, and it was so beautiful and pure and I couldn’t… Couldn’t…” He broke into a frenzy of sobs, and Gabriel relented in his rage.

“Oh, Cassie,” Gabriel said, tsking a bit as he lowered himself down beside his little brother. “I know how much that hurts.”

“No!” Castiel exploded. “No, you don’t. You haven’t laid eyes on your beloved since the Fall. You won’t even look at him from afar, let alone visit him! You say you love him, yet-”’

“I do love him,” Gabriel interjected. “Don’t even say I don’t. Don’t you dare.”

“Then why do you hide yourself away on that mountain? Why haven’t you gone to him?”

Gabriel sighed a long, world-weary sigh. “It would hurt too much. I loved him for who he was, and what he stood for. I don’t know who he is, now, and it’d dishonor his memory to go cavorting about with someone who looked like him and spoke like him – and wasn’t him.”

“But what if it is him?” Castiel asked, desperate for some indication that the man he loved was somewhere within the dryad who looked so very much like him.

A long silence passed between them. “I think we both know why you’re asking me that question,” Gabriel said, finally. His voice was harsh, and Castiel flinched away from him. “And I think we both know the answer as well,” he added, voice softer, now.

Castiel looked up at the moon, which was setting in the pre-dawn sky. “I want to go back,” he said, quietly.

Shifting closer to him, Gabriel smiled sadly. “Me too.” Another lengthy silence passed between them, each of them lost in separate thoughts of the same world – a world that had come and gone and been replaced with something that couldn’t quite compare. “I should…” Gabriel made a vague gesture towards the mountain pass.

“Stay,” Castiel pleaded.

A fathomless sort of longing settled in Gabriel’s eyes, shining like the stars Castiel could see reflected there. “I wish to God I could.” He wiped a stray tear from his eye. “If only that bastard could see us now…”

“Don’t speak of our Father like that,” Castiel admonished.

Gabriel’s features took on a savage look. “I know you are still hoping he will come to us and raise the Heavens and move the Earth. How many decades has it been, now? You’ve lain in this riverbed a century; more. I know you still believe in Him.” Gabriel shook his head. “Your faith is unshakable, brother. God has been gone since you were a fledgling and from what I’ve heard, he’s been absent since the time of Lucifer’s creation.”

Turning away at the mention of Lucifer, Castiel bit his lip and tried to calm his racing mind and his traitorous heart.

“I should go,” Gabriel said, with such finality that Castiel couldn’t find it in him to argue.

“Maybe you should.”

Gabriel turned to go, then turned back. “Steel your heart,” he said, striding forward to clap Castiel on the shoulder. He held on for a moment too long before turning and beginning the long ascent to the top of the mountain where the last remaining portal on Earth that led unto the ruins of Heaven stood. Castiel could see it in his mind’s eye, if he tried – the shimmering sparkle of blue and gold, the pure light and the almost blinding shock of white, the memory of which faded a little more with every passing season.

***

Dean was by the river almost as soon as dawn had broken, but Castiel was nowhere to be found.

“I came as soon as I could,” he said to the water, sounding out of breath.

The river was silent, and stilled in its course.

Dean threw up his hands, began to pace, and promptly tripped over a rock. Huffing, he knelt down to pry it out the ground and hurled it into the river. “Come out!” He shouted. “You don’t get to hide! I have questions.”

Castiel rose from the river, stepping out and shaking the water from his skin. “I’ll answer them,” he said.

“Tell me everything,” Dean said, a tinge of desperation coloring his voice.

Castiel raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like a question to me,” he teased. “And besides, if I’m going to tell you everything… Sam should be here also.”

Dean’s eyes met Castiel’s. “I thought so too,” he said. “Sammy!” he called.

A little guiltily, Sam emerged from the trees and began to cross the distance to the river in long strides.

“Hello, Sam,” Castiel greeted with an eerie familiarity.

“You knew him, too,” Dean said. It wasn’t a question.

“I did, yes,” the former angel agreed. For some reason, Dean couldn’t bring himself to think of Castiel as a water nymph anymore. There was something holy, he reflected, about him – from the manner in which he held himself to the fathomless depths of his eyes, and the way he looked at Dean like he was staring straight into his soul.

“Who was I?” Dean asked, voice shaking.

“You were a hunter,” Castiel sighed. At the stricken look in Dean’s eyes, he belatedly remembered that Dean now had strong bonds with the animals of the forest. “Not of animals. Of monsters,” he hastened to add. “You and your brother travelled the country in search of people in need of saving.”

Sam huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “Monsters?”

“You were always the skeptical one, Sam,” Castiel admitted, a certain sort of fondness gleaming in his eyes. “I think that’s part of the reason we were friends,” he said. “We both questioned.”

Castiel was silent for a long moment. Dean looked at Sam, who was fiddling with his shirt.

“Tell me more,” Sam implored him. “I want to remember.”

Eyes boring into Sam’s, Castiel said, “Dean doubtless told you what I told him. You want to know why you’re here.”

Sam broke eye contact, blushing. “Yes. Is it someone I know? Someone from this forest? Is it a fire spirit?”

A hint of a smile appeared on Castiel’s face. “His name is Gabriel.”   
  


“Gabriel?” Sam’s face scrunched up. “I’ve heard of him. But I’ve never been able to catch so much as a glimpse of him… Isn’t he the one all the others are afraid of?”

“I suspect that you haven’t seen him for a good reason,” Castiel said, finally looking away.

“And what might that be?” Dean injected.

“He’s been hiding from Sam,” Castiel confessed. “Said it’d hurt too much. He visits a few times a month. Usually stays the night, but he always leaves before dawn. He doesn’t want to risk running into him.”

“Huh,” said Sam. He drew into himself.

“If you want, I can summon him,” Castiel offered. It was a reckless thing to do, he knew, and Gabriel wouldn’t take kindly to it. Perchance it was a mistake to wrong an archangel, even one whose Grace was all but depleted, but Castiel wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand the lies and deception. Someday, the truth would out, and he was sure it would set the forest aflame in more ways than one.

“Could you?” Sam asked, eyes shining with unshed tears.

Castiel closed his eyes and prayed. When he opened them again, he smiled and said, “He’ll be here by the time the sun reaches its zenith.”

Dean slid closer to Castiel and began to ask all the questions he had. Had he and Sam been brothers, in their life before? What had the world been like? How had he and Sam both found love in the arms of an angel? How had they travelled so far, so fast? And what of their family, and their friends?

With great patience, Castiel set about answering his myriad questions.

The sun climbed in the sky as noon crept closer. Eventually, Dean had exhausted his questions for the moment at least, and the three of them sat, lost in a haze of memories and half-remembered snippets of another life.

A clap of thunder sounded low in the distance, and rainclouds were brewing on the horizon. A storm was forming somewhere to the west, working its way out to sea.

Gabriel arrived with much fanfare.

“Sam,” came a voice that was unfamiliar to the brothers. Its speaker sounded utterly betrayed, and Sam turned to the sound like a planet turns towards the sun, a lost look in his eyes. “Castiel,” he breathed, turning to his brother. “You summoned me here for – _this_?” His eyes took on a steely glint, and Castiel stood and began to back away, towards the river. “How dare you?”

The rain began to fall around them, as a drizzle that quickly turned into a deluge.

“The storm,” Castiel breathed. “It’s you.”

Gabriel turned towards Dean, and began to walk towards him with measured steps. “Memories,” he said. “Such fickle things. So very fleeting. And ever. So. Fragile.” He closed his hands into fists. “Castiel,” he said, shaking his head. “How many times do I need to tell you that they are incapable of remembering?”

“I do remember you,” Sam ventured. “Your wings… They were golden. And you liked sweets. And…” He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the cobwebs that had settled in his memory. “And I remember that we flew together. You took me up to the roof and led me to the edge and… You asked me if I trusted you, and I said…”

“’Always,’” Gabriel said, looking at Sam with a newfound sense of wonder. “How is that possible?”

“I dreamt it,” Sam said. “I... I’ve had strange dreams all my life. It’s all starting to make sense!” He waved his hands about as if to illustrate.

“No,” Gabriel insisted. “I’ve told you time and time again. They cannot remember.” He pulled Castiel closer to the river. “You’ve seen what happens when they remember. Do you really want that to happen to Sam? To Dean? ” he whispered.

Castiel nodded. “If anyone can remember without suffering the consequences, it’s them.”

“Is that a risk you want to take?” Gabriel growled.

When Castiel hesitated a little too long, Gabriel sighed and pushed him into the river, a savage look masking his usually handsome features. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and his Grace sung – it was Sam. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and turned around. He hadn’t been this close to anyone besides Cas in so very long.

“Sam,” he greeted. “Dean,” he said, acknowledging the other dryad after a moment.

“What did you mean when you said ‘consequences?’” Dean demanded, stepping between Gabriel and his little brother. A long, tense moment passed during which they stared each other down until Gabriel seemed to crumple into himself, looking small and haunted.

“Your half-brother, Adam Milligan,” Gabriel began. “He and Michael shared… A history.” He turned back to the river, where Castiel was now wringing out his clothes by the water’s edge. “Michael likes to think he’s above and beyond everyone and everything. The rules don’t apply to him, or so he likes to delude himself into believing.” He paused, eyes boring into each of them in turn. “Long story short, Adam couldn’t handle the divide between the old world and the new. His bond to the tree he’d been tethered to broke. Without anything to ground his soul in the physical world, he…” Gabriel swallowed hard. “He didn’t make it.” He spun around. “And now Castiel wants to do the same to you.”

“I want them to have a choice,” Castiel said, falling to his knees. “Isn’t that what we were fighting for?”

“A lifetime ago, yes,” Gabriel snapped. “We fought for free will and self-determination and the right to choose our own destinies. And look where that got us. This – this is destiny! You think destiny cares about you or your petty little desires? You think destiny bends to your will? _Destiny_ doesn’t bow to anyone. It’s cruel and unalterable and it doesn’t give a damn.”

“Gabriel,” Sam said softly. It was still raining, but a sudden lull in the storm came as a welcome relief to them all.

“Yes?” Gabriel replied, eyes searching for something of the man he’d known in this young dryad’s face.

Sam strode up to Gabriel, taking his hand and pressing it to his chest. “I think you’ve been alone too long,” he whispered. “You should come to our home. We’ll cook you dinner.”

For a beat, Gabriel looked torn. “I’d like that very much,” he whispered back. “But I’m needed elsewhere,” he said, voice hardening.

“Wait,” Sam called as the other wrenched himself free of Sam and turned to go. Gabriel didn’t pay him much heed.

“Gabriel,” Dean called. “Please…” Gabriel stilled. “Please make me remember. I need to remember. I don’t care if it kills me. I’d rather die for who I am, with those I love, than stay here and live a lie.”

Gabriel raised a hand to snap, and a blinding pain crashed over Dean. He doubled over.

“Gabriel! What have you done?” He heard Cas call. The angel’s face faded into focus. “Dean! Dean? Stay with me… Please.”

With the image of Castiel swimming in his mind’s eye, he lost consciousness and was plunged into the fathomless depths of memory.

The world seemed far away and out of reach; time lost all meaning, and Dean Winchester remembered who he was and what he stood for.

Memory after memory paraded themselves through his field of vision as he watched the stricken world drift in its place amongst the stars, alone and so very afraid.

***

Dean didn’t surface for three days, during which Castiel rarely left his side. Occasionally, he would trickle river water into Dean’s mouth, and mop his brow. The fever didn’t break until dawn of the third night, at which point Dean slowly roused.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice sounded rough from disuse. “Where are we?”

“We’re by the river, Dean,” Castiel said. “What’s the last thing to remember?”

Dean shook his head, blinking a few times and then reaching up to rub the sleep from his eyes. “Me and you and Sam were talking with Gabriel.” He blinked again. Castiel took this as a good sign, and nodded for Dean to continue. “We were in the warehouse,” he continued. “Tell me… How did we end up in this forest? And for that matter, where’s Baby?” He stood, and immediately regretted it, swaying on his feet and reaching an arm out towards Cas to steady himself.

“Dean…” Castiel looked stricken. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but that day in the warehouse…”

“Yeah? What about it?” Dean prompted.

“That was over 150 years ago.”


	8. When Rivers Rage

The river flooded its banks that day in the storm that followed, and it rose up, creeping towards the edge of the tree-line, threatening to swamp the homes of several dryads.

“Let them drown,” Castiel said, viciously, when Sam asked him about it. Sam had returned one morning from getting supplies from their home to find Dean gone, and hadn’t stopped questioning Castiel about it since.

Dean had gone towards places neither of them could follow. He’d slammed Castiel against the nearest tree and demanded to know how to get out of the forest.

And Castiel, bless his broken soul, had told him. “Follow the river south. You’ll find the ruins of the city there.” 

“ _Ruins_ ,” Dean had scoffed. “You know what? _Fuck_ you and your angel mind-games.”

Castiel had begun to weep, at that point. He’d spent the past two and a half decades – more – wishing, hoping, for Dean to remember. He’d never considered the possibility that Dean would remember – only to forget his life in the forest, and the latter half of his first life, and his time in Heaven, and the love they’d shared.

Presently, Sam laid a hand on Castiel’s shoulder to shake him out of his reverie.

“He’ll be back,” Castiel decided.

“Will he?” Sam asked, skeptical.

Sighing, Castiel settled himself down at the river’s edge. “The tree he was bound to protect – does it still stand?”

Sam nodded. “Yes, and it’s in bud. I watered it yesterday and visited it just this morning.”

“That alone should be enough to draw him back. He might have forgotten, but as far as I can tell, he’s still a dryad.” Castiel cast his gaze to the east, where the sun was still rising above the horizon to greet the new day, and tried not to succumb to the weight of his regrets. Dean the dryad had been falling in love with him, and he’d squandered not only that love, but also the love they’d shared in another time, in another place; in another life. He wished to take flight, to somehow find a way to cross the distance between the here and now and the then and there. Cursing his battered wings and broken halo, he rose and began to walk into the river.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked.

“Home,” Castiel said simply, sinking into the water’s cool embrace.

***

Dean followed the river south, the way Castiel had told him to go, keeping close to the water’s edge.

He didn’t run into anyone on the first day, nor the day after that. He subsisted mainly on edible plants he washed in the river’s cool, fresh waters, grumbling the entire time and craving burgers and pie instead of mushrooms and greens.

“Damn angels,” he complained to himself. “Setting me down in the middle of freaking nowhere.”

He started to worry on the third day. Doubt comes too easily, he thought. A niggling suspicion began to gnaw at him, stronger than his hunger or his cravings or the abject sort of loneliness that plagued him as he made his way south.

Still, he refused to pray.

It was only when he stumbled into a clearing that he finally understood, all at once, and much too quickly, what Castiel had been trying to warn him of.

The city stood across the waters – and Dean put a hand over his mouth and willed himself not to be sick. 

The gleaming towers of what had once been New York City stood, resplendent in green. All manners of vines and creeping plants and assorted greenery enrobed every building that still stood. He pictured the iconic skyline as it had been, just yesterday, it seemed; in another life. The Empire State Building still stood, as did the Chrysler building, and they dwarfed all other surviving buildings. The skyscrapers had fallen. The city had been transformed into a green, growing thing. The concrete jungle was finally living up to its name.

It was evident that many years had passed, and Dean was overtaken by a sudden sense of remorse. He felt like he’d been caught sleeping at the gates, like he’d dozed through the better part of two hundred years, like he’d been living a dream and had just now awakened into a nightmare.

  
“Okay, I’m praying,” he shouted, more to himself than to any angel. “I was wrong, alright? I should have listened.” He blinked back tears. “Oh, God, I should have listened.”

The sound of steel scraping against metal and brick sounded as if from a great distance, and Dean turned around to watch as another tall building crumpled across the river, sending up great plumes of dust to stand in its place.

Something strange stirred within Dean, and he moved to the river’s edge. The water was calm for the first time since he’d started his journey, and Dean marveled at his reflection for a moment, turning this way and that. He looked so very young. He’d lost at least a decade somewhere along the way. “Take me back,” he whispered to the still waters. “Please.”

Something soft and warm settled upon his shoulder, and Dean was briefly startled. “Hey there, little lady,” he said to the horse that had appeared at his side.

“Thanks Cas,” he prayed, not sure why his eyes lingered on the river as he spoke.

***

The image of the city haunted Dean as he rode.

It occurred to him that this horse had never known a saddle atop her back, nor the bite of a bridle, so Dean clung to the creature’s neck instead, hating the jostling motions of the horse as she kept up a firm canter.

Hours passed, Dean lost in his thoughts of ruined cities and a world that had was so very changed from the one he’d woke up in, just last week. Various explanations presented themselves to him, each less plausible than the last.

As the river wound its way through the forest, Dean clung to his horse and tried not to weep.

It was evident that something had gone terribly wrong. Something he hadn’t been able to fix. Something even the angels couldn’t have prevented.

Day wore into night, and the horse slowed and stopped.

“Come on,” he said, pulling at the horse’s mane and tapping his heels against her sides. She refused to go a step further, and he groaned. “How do I make this thing start?”

“You don’t,” a gratingly familiar voice said from just beyond the tree-line. “She’s a wild horse. No one has ever trained her.” Castiel sounded distracted. “It’s a good sign that you were able to ride her. It means you still have some dryad left in you.”

“Dry-what?” Dean asked, dismounting and falling to the forest floor in a graceless heap.

Castiel’s head tilted. “You still don’t remember.” Dean could hear a hint of remorse in his voice, and it grated on his nerves.

“Look, Cas,” Dean said, watching warily as the angel strode up to the horse and began to stroke her neck. “I’m going to need some answers.”

“Ask me anything,” Castiel offered, settling down in the damp grass by the river’s edge.

“Well, for one – what the hell are you wearing?”

Castiel let out a little laugh. “It’s called a tunic,” he said. “But I suspect you knew that already.” He paused. “Ask me what you really want to know,” he prompted.

“The city…” Dean couldn’t find the words to voice his question, and looked helplessly at his hands, which rested on his lap, clenching and unclenching into fists.

“There was a war,” Castiel began.

“Between Michael and Lucifer?” Dean questioned.

Castiel shook his head. “No. You and Sam actually managed to prevent that.” He sighed. “No, this war had nothing to do with angels… It was humanity. It tripped and fell upon its own sword. Those last few days and weeks… I don’t think anyone knew what they were fighting for, anymore. The bombs…”

“Is that what happened to the city?” Dean asked. “Was it bombed?”

“Yes,” Castiel said, “but not in the way you think. There was an arms race to develop a bio-weapon. A super-virus so deadly it wiped out ninety percent of the population… There were survivors, for a time, you know,” Castiel said. Dean didn’t like the look in his eyes. “You were one of them,” he added.

“And Sam?” Dean asked.

“Sam fell ill,” Castiel sighed. “You were lucky, you were immune. You nursed him, you tried magic, you tried to make a deal… But there weren’t any demons who’d bite. He died a long time ago.”

Dean wiped tears from his eyes. “Yeah, but I must have died some time ago myself. You said it’s been more than a century.”

Castiel cast his eyes towards the stars, which were beginning to appear in the evening sky. “Let me finish,” he bade Dean, then was silent for a long moment. “You know, I think it might have worked out, in the end. Except… The survivors. The ones who were immune. The virus didn’t kill them. It just rendered them infertile.” He let out a long, shaky breath. “Heaven couldn’t hold the weight of so many souls; not without the creation of more angels, or nephilim at the very least. We fell. All of us – humans and angels alike…” Another breath. “But we survived,” he said, voice quivering. “And we bound the souls we chose to trees, to become dryads. This forest… This is all that’s left of the world.”

Dean whistled, half in disbelief. “Well then,” he said. “Wait… I bet there’s a lot of trees in this forest, but there sure as hell aren’t seven billion. How… How did you choose?”

Castiel closed his eyes and willed himself not to weep. “This again,” he said, biting out a bitter, humorless laugh. “You – you asked me the same question a few days ago. When you were still just a dryad. Before you were made to remember. How else could we have chosen? We choose the humans we most loved.”

“So you’re saying that an angel loved me?”

“I’m saying one still does,” Castiel said quietly.

Dean stood. “Bullshit.”

Castiel was crying openly now, and Dean thought that it didn’t bode well – that this angel, the one who had raised him from perdition, the one he’d fought to stop the apocalypse with, the one who had still been learning how to be human, was weeping. “Dean,” Castiel pleaded. “Please don’t make me lose you again.”

“Again?” Dean questioned.

Castiel turned away, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of the other any longer. “Go,” he whispered. “Find Sam. I can’t do this anymore,” he said.

“Sam?” Dean breathed. “He’s here?”

But Castiel was already standing up, striding into the river, and sinking to its bottom.

“Cas!” Dean called, shoulders sinking. Then, “Sam!” He ran towards the trees, calling his brother’s name at the top of his lungs. “Sam!”

Sam came rushing out of the trees, looking like he was caught somewhere in that liminal space halfway between a child and a man. “Dean?” he asked.

“Sammy,” Dean said, rushing towards his brother and enveloping him in a warm hug.

“What do you remember?” Sam asked, releasing Dean and holding him at arm’s length.

Dean shook his head. “I don’t remember being a- what do you call it?”

“Dryad?” Sam offered.

“Yeah. That.” Dean shuffled his feet, feeling like he’d disappointed his brother.

“It’s alright,” Sam decided, shrugging. “I don’t remember anything before the Great Awakening.” He clapped Dean on the shoulder. “I guess that makes us even.”

“Wait,” Dean said, holding up his hands. “You don’t remember being human?”

Sam shook his head sadly. “No.” A long silence stretched between them. It was an uncomfortable silence, punctuated only by soft birdsong, the rustling of leaves, and the rushing burble of the water. “But I met the angel who is the reason I’m here,” he offered. “He’s the one who made you remember.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “What was his name?”

Sam blushed, the thought of the water spirit who lived up on the mountain bringing color to his cheeks. “Gabriel.”

“Figures,” Dean grunted. He turned away from Sam so his brother wouldn’t see him start to cry.

“Dean?” Sam questioned, voice cracking.

“Yeah, Sammy?” Dean asked, not turning to face his brother.

“Let me take you home.”

Dean smiled gratefully and spun back around.

“Mom’s waiting,” Sam offered.

Dean’s jaw dropped open. “Mom?” He questioned.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know anything about…” Sam gestured between them. “This,” he settled on. “Your memory. The past.” Sam looked both ways before leaning in. “I’ve been thinking, and… I don’t even know why she’s here.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, a whirlwind of emotions churning in his belly.

“You’d know better than me,” Sam said quickly. “Was there any angel in her life? One who loved her?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “So you’re saying you’re buying the whole ‘beloved by angels’ thing? Because I’m sure as hell not.”

“It’s true, Dean-o,” came a voice from the tree-line.

Gabriel stepped out from behind a tree, and Sam squeaked and hid behind Dean, though his height made it rather ineffective.

“As for your darling mother…” Gabriel sighed. “She was a gift,” he confessed. His eyes fixed on Dean. “Hello, _archangel_? I’ve got a little more sway up on the mountain than your average angel.”

Dean cast his gaze to the forest floor. “If it’s true…” He ventured. “If what you’re saying is true, which angel was I loved by?”

Gabriel snorted in laughter. Sam peeked out from behind his hiding place and smiled coyly at the angel. “Like you don’t know.”

Dean’s eyes once more found their way to the river. “Cas…” he breathed.

“Bingo,” Gabriel said, pointing his fingers like a gun and shooting at Dean. “Come along, both of you. Something is happening that you’d better see.”


	9. The Flowers Do Fade

The tree was beautiful, providing a comfortable patch of shade. Dean laid a hand on its trunk and felt a strange sense of déjà -vu.

“Yeah?” He was quickly growing impatient. “What’s so special about a tree?”

“Well, for one, it’s what’s keeping you alive,” Gabriel hissed. He cast his eyes up the length of the trunk. “And another thing. It’s not a flowering tree.”

“So?” Dean asked.

“It’s in bloom,” Sam breathed, reaching out to catch a falling flower petal.

“Oh,” Dean said.

Gabriel’s eyes fell on Sam. “Which means…” He trailed off.

Sam’s gaze met Gabriel’s. “Which means you can make me remember too,” he said, running across the carpet of petals and up to Gabriel, eyes pleading.

“Not quite yet,” Gabriel sighed. “Remembering killed Adam. And if this is going to work-”

“Wait,” Dean interrupted. “Back up a second there. Adam was here too?”

“You’ve met him?” Sam asked, eager.

“Briefly,” Dean said. “You were saying?”

“Well, we’re one for two here. And I’m not going to risk your life with those kind of odds,” Gabriel said, with a meaningful glance at Sam.

“Please,” Sam breathed. “I want to remember.” He reached for Gabriel, but the archangel flinched away from his touch.

Gabriel’s voice was pained when he spoke next. “I’m not sure you do,” he said sadly. “You’ve lived twenty years in this forest, and-”

“Twenty-one,” Sam corrected.

Gabriel spared Sam a fond look before continuing. “All I’m saying is that you’ve lived a charmed life as a dryad. As a human…” Gabriel’s eyes closed. “You suffered a great deal.”

“You don’t think I’ve suffered as a dryad?” Sam challenged, using his height to his advantage as he pressed closer to Gabriel.

“Trust me, kiddo, you don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Sam, in a fit of rage, shoved at Gabriel, who stumbled back. It was a testament to how much of his Grace was depleted that he tripped on a root, his limbs sprawled haphazardly across the forest floor. 

Dean raised an eyebrow. He’d always thought of archangels as unmovable beings, heart of stone; blood of bone; nerves of stronger stuff than steel. They were unshakable – storms burning in the heart of distant suns.

And yet, there was Gabriel on the ground, rubbing gingerly at the place Sam had shoved him. It occurred to Dean once more that his world had come and gone.

“Sammy,” Dean spoke. “He’s right. I don’t know what’s happened in this forest… But the world as it was… It was cold, and brutal, and we had the great misfortune to see the very worst it had to offer.”

“I want to remember,” Sam insisted. His jaw was set, and his mind was made up.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” Gabriel sighed. “I’ll talk to my brethren. Maybe once they see that Dean still lives, they’ll wish for their dryads to remember as well. If and only if that goes well, we’ll see about giving you back your memory too.”

“No,” Sam shouted, voice rising with every word. “I can’t let you put the others in this forest in danger. I’m not a child anymore; I can’t sit back and allow you to treat me like one. I can decide these things for myself. I want to remember.”

“What if you don’t remember me?” Gabriel asked, voice shaking.

“Is that what you’re truly scared of?” Sam asked, stance softening as he approached Gabriel and offered a hand to help him up.

“I’m scared of losing you again,” the other whispered, twin trails of tears making their way down his face. Gabriel wiped them away angrily. “My answer still stands,” he said, ignoring the proffered hand and rising on his own.

“Gabriel,” Sam pleaded as the other walked away. He stamped his foot in frustration. “Come back!”

But the other did not turn around, nor did he slow or stop or give any indication whatsoever that he had heard. Sam was about to protest further when their mother appeared at the edge of the clearing.

“Boys,” she scolded gently. “And you, Dean. Where have you been?” She put a hand on her hip, and Dean didn’t trust himself to speak at the sight of her, and turned helplessly to Sam.

“He was by the river,” Sam explained. “He went north. To the foot of the mountain.”

Their mother smiled so brightly that Dean felt his knees go weak. He remembered that smile from his youth, and it pained him to see it, now, in person, under the circumstances.

“Mom,” he whispered, voice warbling.

She strode up to him, took his chin in her hands, and turned his head this way and this. “There’s a spark in your eyes,” she said, smiling. “I suppose your absence can be excused, if young love is to blame.”

Dean flushed, which only served to confirm Mary’s suspicions.

“Well, then.” She said, releasing her elder son. “Let’s make dinner together, just you and me.”

Dean cast his eyes to the forest floor. “I’d like that,” he whispered, raising his gaze to meet hers. She was smiling like the sun, and Dean, caught in her gravity, could not help but smile back.

***

That night, the dreams came on strong.

Dean awoke what felt like every hour – though time had no meaning beyond the motions of the moon and the sun and the stars, now – from another fevered dream of a half-remembered life; the life that came after that day in the warehouse – the life that had come and gone.

He stumbled out of bed before first light, when the moon was just beginning to set and the morning star was still bright in the gloom. He made his way through the tree cover towards the river, cursing every time he tripped on a root or stumbled across wild animals that tried to bury their faces in his pockets, sniffing for interesting tidbits of food. Part of him wanted to remember his life as a dryad – a life where he’d grown up in a loving family in a real home, albeit one woven of reeds, rope, and other fibrous plants.

“Cas,” Dean whispered, approaching the river gingerly as he broke through the tree-line. The waters shone in the moonlight, and Dean knelt down for a drink.

He found himself floundering in the river a moment later, pulled in by invisible hands.

Spluttering, he surfaced. “Not cool,” he gasped, swimming to the shore and hauling him up. “Damn it, Cas.” He panted more from surprise than from exertion. “What the hell was that for?”

Castiel emerged from the glittering waters. “I wanted to see something,” he said noncommittally.

  
“What’s that?” Dean asked. The night was cold, and he was beginning to shiver.

Sighing, Castiel settled himself beside Dean and wrapped an arm around him. “I wanted to see if you’d remember,” he said, lips entirely too close to Dean’s own for comfort.

“Remember what? Being half-drowned?”

Castiel shook his head, a certain sort of mischief in his eyes. “Dean,” he drawled, drawing closer.

“Are… Are you going to kiss me?” Dean breathed, feeling his treacherous heart begin to beat in double-time.

Eyes lighting up, Castiel whispered, “May I?”

Dean didn’t answer at first. Then, he leaned down and closed the distance between them, crushing his lips against Castiel’s, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t feel so very right. The feel of Castiel’s slick lips against his own felt familiar. It felt like coming home.

They kissed for a while before coming up for air, both of them breathless from the meeting of their lips.

Dean turned to the angel. He looked so beautiful in the pale light of the coming dawn, and Dean’s eyes began to water.

“You know, I don’t know if I ever said ‘thank you.’”

“For what?” Castiel asked, tilting his head.

Dean shrugged. “For everything.”

“If you want to thank me,” Castiel began, cupping Dean’s cheek in his palm, “start by telling me you’ll learn to love me again.”

Dean’s eyes grew sad. “I can’t promise anything,” he said, slowly. “But I’ll try.” The rising sun formed what looked like a halo around Castiel’s head, and he grinned. “Starting now.” He drew the other closer, and they kissed again, this time slower and with great tenderness.

When they finally drew apart, Dean traced the lines of Castiel’s face with his gaze. The other looked utterly wrecked by that last kiss, like it had been something he’d been waiting for all his life, and he clung to Dean like he was the last bit of floating detritus in a flooded world.

“Cas,” he spoke, voice gentle and soft. “It’s okay, I’m not going to leave you.”

“You say that now,” Castiel whispered, finally releasing Dean. “Anything can happen.”

“Did Gabriel tell you that my tree is in bloom?” Dean asked, a hint of a smile gracing his features.

“I thought you didn’t have a flowering tree,” Castiel said.

“Apparently not,” Dean said. “But there must be thousands of flowers.”

Castiel’s jaw worked and he looked unblinkingly towards the place where the colors of the sunrise were beginning to slip from their place in the sky. “Don’t you understand? No one knows what that means. Besides,” he said, rising and leaving Dean at the mercy of the chilly morning wind once more. “Flowers fade.”

“Cas, wait,” Dean called. “Don’t shut me out,” he begged. “Please. This world…” He gestured to the trees and the sky and the river. “I don’t think I could bear it without you. You are the only one here who remembers.”

“There’s Gabriel,” Castiel murmured vaguely.

“He can barely stand me, and you know it,” Dean said, standing. “You… You’re the only one who understands. Sam doesn’t get it, and as nice as it is to have Mom back, I don’t even know where to begin with her. Look, Cas,” Dean continued, voice sinking into a hoarse whisper, “as far as I’m concerned, I woke up in my motel room a week ago with my car sitting outside, and now the whole world is in a grave and all that’s left is this forest and the mountain that overlooks it. Everything that we thought would last a thousand years didn’t even last a hundred. Every unchangeable thing has been altered beyond recognition. The line we drew in the sand between man and nature no longer exists. Please.”

Castiel strode up to him, so close that their breaths mingled in the air. “What would you have me do?”

“Help me understand,” Dean pleaded. “Help me navigate this world.” When the other was silent, Dean turned away for a moment to compose himself. “Don’t leave me to do this alone.”

“Dean…” Castiel looked torn between the two worlds that lived within Dean. “Whatever you need, if it’s in my power to provide, it’ll be yours.” He smiled slightly.

“Thank you,” Dean breathed. He turned back towards the trees. “I should… Go. Apparently I’ve got a list of chores a mile long. Sammy covered for me when I went to see the ruins of the city, but if I’m ever going to adjust to… This… I should at least make an effort,” he said.

“I understand, Dean,” Castiel spoke. “I’ll be waiting when you’re ready to speak again.”

Dean nodded in gratitude. He reached out to touch Castiel, but thought better of it and withdrew his arm. “See you around, angel,” he said.

“Goodbye, Dean,” Castiel said, turning his back to the other so Dean wouldn’t see as he came undone.


	10. Soon Break, Soon Wither, Soon Forgotten

“You did _what_?”

Gabriel had the good graces to look contrite as Michael fumed and began to pace.

“You’ve taken an unacceptable risk,” the elder archangel said. He ran a hand over his face, and turned to Gabriel looking world-weary, his frown lines appearing to age his eternal vessel, the one he’d forged from the mountain, stone made flesh and bone, snow made into blood and sinew.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Gabriel joked.

Michael’s eyes flashed. “You are no longer the Herald, Gabriel. The end has come and gone. Look around you; the message is out. And you aren’t just the messenger; you’re the one who made Dean Winchester, of all dryads in that forest, remember his past life. And now you’re thinking of making his brother remember as well.”

“Well,” Gabriel began.

Holding up a hand to silence him, Michael said, “Sam and Dean were unstoppable. Not even God could help those who tried to stand in their way,” he hissed. “And now you’ve unleashed their memories. Anything could happen.”

“But all I wanted was-” Gabriel tried.

“What?” Michael asked. “All you wanted was for your precious Sam to remember you? You wanted him back at your side and in your bed?” Michael’s jaw worked, and his eyes were steely. “I can’t say I don’t understand. But that kind of thinking is what killed Adam Milligan. I have told you time and again, don’t make my mistakes. And now you’ve gone and made them – with someone else’s beloved, no less. For all we know, Dean could be on his death bed down in that valley.”

“His tree,” Gabriel started.

“What about it?” Michael shot back.

“It’s in bloom.”

Michael crossed his arms, supremely unimpressed with this information. “So?”

“It’s not a flowering tree,” Gabriel said, eyes sparkling.

“That could mean anything,” Michael said, suddenly looking distracted. “Or nothing at all,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Don’t you think it means there’s hope?”

“Maybe once I might have,” Michael confessed. “But right about now I’m thinking that you’ve made a terrible mistake, and only time will tell what the consequences will be.”

“Michael, what if this wasn’t a mistake? What if this is the beginning of something that our brethren have been dreaming of for decades?”

Michael’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Don’t you think I had the same hopes? The same dreams? Whatever went wrong with Adam can and will go wrong with other dryads.” He turned around, trembling, as he tried to regain what little composure he had left. “I didn’t want to have to do this,” Michael said, solemnly. “But I am ordering you not to make any of the other forest spirits remember.”  
  


“Brother, don’t stand in my way. We’ve danced to this beat before and it didn’t end pretty,” Gabriel warned.

“Gabriel,” Michael said, voice gentler than it had been all night. “I thought I could make you see reason. We are the stewards of the last vestiges of humanity. Those souls by the foot of the mountain, in the forest… They are all that is left of our Father’s Creation. I won’t let you send them to their deaths, and if you try, I’m warning you now that I will stop you using any means necessary.” Michael took in a deep, shaky breath. “However,” he said, a sad smile forming on his face, “you may make Sam Winchester remember, should he consent to it – on one condition.”

Gabriel’s heart, which had been pounding all night, seemed to plummet in his chest. “Oh?” He said, trying and failing to sound noncommittal.

“If he survives, you must take him and his brother away from the forest. I will see to it personally that their trees are taken care of. The other dryads cannot know that they had a life before this one.”

Gabriel’s eyes fluttered shut. “So it’s come to this again,” he said quietly. “You – pushing me away, exiling me from yet another fool’s paradise and sending me out into the wilds of this world. You – forsaking your own brother, yet again.”

A look of remorse settled across Michael’s features. “You made your bed, Gabriel.” He shook his head. “Now lie in it.”

***

Gabriel took the long way down the mountain. He was dreading going to Dean and Sam and Castiel with this revelation. He had time enough to lament the pettiness of his dreams, and he allowed himself to weep very quietly at the unfairness of it all, and the way everything he’d worked for over the past hundred years could be undone with a wayward snap of his fingers.

He turned his face up to the sky and tried to stem the storm brewing inside of him. It was already beginning to rain, and thunder threatened in the distance.

For some reason, he couldn’t get a hold on the seething mass of anger roiling inside him. The rain began to pound down on the forest’s canopy as he made his way down to the foot of the mountain; far-away lightning flashed and thunder sounded close behind. Gabriel shivered at its rumble, and felt the rain soaking him to the bone, chilling him. A foreboding washed over him, cold and slick, like the steady rivulets of rainwater making their way down his neck.

***

Elsewhere, Dean had been lost in his thoughts. Most of what he’d needed to do had been accomplished that morning, shortly after Sam had roused him at first light. Waking up before dawn was one of those skills that were acquired through a lifetime of practice, and Dean had thankfully been able to master it in both of his lives.

It didn’t help, however, that he was completely new to most of the chores that needed to be accomplished. Sweeping was easy enough, and sorting Sam’s potions came like second nature, but when it came to replanting some seedlings, tilling the ground where they were to lie, and hauling water to their beds, he was out of his depth.

Sam had stopped many times throughout the course of the day to admonish him. Dean gritted his teeth and allowed it. He was, in truth, utterly inept at fully half of the tasks that were now required of him.

“What’s your job around here?” Dean had asked at one point, as the grueling mid-morning sun bore down on them. “Surely, it can’t be to follow me around and make sure I don’t fuck up.”

“Of course not,” Sam had sighed. “I’m the younger brother, so it falls to me to manage the matters of household, to trade with other dryads and to forage, and of course to practice magic of healing and strength.”

Dean had hummed to himself. “And what, exactly, do I do, again?”

“Well, you’re the eldest, so you cook and clean and perform plant and animal magics.”

And so the day went, from feeding the animals of the forest to preparing the day’s evening meal and tidying up their humble abode.

Now that his tasks were finally over, he was left with too much time on his hands. Their mother had gone to visit a neighbor about a mile away, and Sam had left to forage, so he laid in his bed of furs, elevated above the floor by a woven platform, fiddling with the relics of his life as it had been.

There was a little doll woven from reeds on his nightstand, which was a vaguely circular rock half-buried so as to allow anything set on the surface lie flat, as well as a few plastic baubles that had somewhere survived the hundred-odd years it had been since the date of their manufacture. He was pleased to see that one of them was a small toy car. And then there was the necklace. Holding it made him think of Castiel, and he was sure there was a reason behind that feeling of his stomach lurching whenever he looked at the thing, even if he couldn’t remember it now.

He set it aside.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Come in,” he called. It was only in retrospect he would realize his assumption that the person on the other side of the door was Sam was foolish.

“Dean,” came a voice that most certainly wasn’t Sam’s.

“Cas?” Dean sat up too quickly and earned himself a bout of vertigo. He didn’t remember seeing Castiel this far from the river in, well, forever.

“There’s a storm coming,” Castiel said, voice urgent. “What’s happened? Where is Sam?” He asked, then added, almost to himself, “What have you done?” 

“I don’t know; he went out. I’m sure he’s fine. He knows these woods better than I do. And I don’t control the weather, Cas,” Dean sighed.

“No,” Castiel admitted. “But Gabriel does.”

The Heavens chose that moment to open up. The deluge began quite suddenly, and Dean cursed as the roof began to leak.

“I should get a pan,” Dean said, rising.

“Dean,” Castiel said, “the roof can wait. We need to find Sam. I think he’s in terrible danger.”

***

Sam was kneeling down to gather from a final patch of chanterelles when Gabriel came upon him, like the ocean comes onto shore. He didn’t even time to utter a greeting when Gabriel was hauling him to his feet and staring him down with a piercing gaze, the depths of which were fathomless – he could tell this didn’t bode well, but couldn’t quite put his finger on the feeling sparking up and down his spine.

“Sam,” Gabriel spoke, shouting to be heard over the thunder. “You said you wanted to remember.” He paused. Lighting sparked across the sky; the thunder sounded overhead moments later, and Sam felt a cool chill race down his back. “Be sure that is what you want.”

“Gabriel,” Sam began, but Gabriel leaned forward, silencing him with a kiss.

Sam’s eyes grew wide, and he spluttered, too shocked to say anything further.

“Don’t speak,” Gabriel said, voice a low and soothing murmur in his ear. He drew away. “I’m going to ask you a question, and if you want what I’m offering, you nod ‘yes.’ If you don’t, shake your head ‘no’ and I’ll leave this place and you won’t ever have to see me again.”

Sam’s eyes began to fill with tears. Gabriel was like a whirlwind in his arms, and what the archangel had just said sounded like an ultimatum to him. He couldn’t speak for the lump in his throat, couldn’t breathe for the scent of the other filling his lungs, like the scent of the rain and the moss-draped rocks and the pines.

“Do you want to remember your life before this? Do you want to remember everything?”

In the distance, Sam could hear someone calling his name, but Gabriel just clung to him tighter, and Sam still couldn’t find the words to protest. Eyes wide, he nodded.

Smiling gently, Gabriel kissed him again, and Sam saw the stars past the clouds. Then a great weight seemed to settle on his shoulders, and he slid down, down, down, into darkness. He had just enough time to register Gabriel’s arms closing in around him before the darkness claimed him.

***

By the time Dean and Castiel rushed, breathless, into Gabriel’s path, it was evident from the limp form in the archangel’s arms that they were already too late.

“Sammy,” Dean whispered, rushing to his brother’s side. Sam’s breath was coming in faint little puffs of air.

“Why would you do this?” Castiel shouted, struggling to be heard above the howling wind and raging thunder.

Gabriel whispered a word, but the wind whipped it away before it could reach either Dean or Castiel.

But Sam, afloat in the war-torn waters of his fevered dreams, was listening from afar, and it sounded an awful lot like “Hope.”


	11. Had Joys No Date

While an ocean of memories crashed over Sam, Gabriel sat on the edge of the young dryad’s bed and addressed Dean and Castiel.

“Michael says that if this works, I have to take the three of you somewhere far away from here.”

“Screw Michael,” Dean said, the words rising like an impulse within him. “I’ve said ‘no’ to him before, and I’ll do it again.”

“This Michael isn’t a force you want to reckon with. He’s been torn apart by grief. He has nothing left to lose, and he’s not going to stop at anything to get what he thinks is best.”

“So we prove him wrong,” Castiel said. He turned to Dean and clasped the other’s hand in his own. “It won’t be the first time.”

“No, but it might be your last if we don’t play this right.”

“We?” Dean asked.

Gabriel leaned in close. “I have a plan.”

***

Castiel was silent for a long, abyssal moment. He turned to Dean, regret already writ large across his features.

“It could work,” Castiel said, slowly. “If we’re very, very lucky, it could work. But there’s no escaping the fact that what happened to Adam could happen to any dryad.” His eyes fell upon Sam. “It could even happen to-”

“Don’t,” Gabriel warned.

Castiel looked away, appropriately chastised.

“He’s going to be alright, isn’t he?” Dean asked Gabriel. “Sammy is going to live.”

“It’s too early to tell,” Gabriel said, voice colored with a strange sort of sorrow, like he had the weight of eons bearing down upon him.

“Look,” Dean said turning a smooth stone from the river that he’d found on his bedside table over and over in his hands, “when Sam wakes up-”

“ _If_ ,” Castiel interrupted.

“When,” Dean asserted. “When he wakes up, maybe we should just admit that we’re outmatched and leave.”

“Yes, why don’t we tuck our tails between our legs and scurry off to somewhere else,” Gabriel mocked. “The only problem is that there is nowhere else,” he continued, voice rising. “This forest. That mountain. That’s it. That’s what’s left of this world. You saw the city, Dean. It’s a relic. North of the mountain, there’s nothing but trees. And if you go west, it’s all wild. Meaning it’s utterly impassable. This world… It was very convenient and all, when there were still humans. You made it that way, with your paved roads and your technology and your industrial lighting. But it took hundreds – thousands – of years to make it that way.”

“We could go East, towards the sea,” Castiel offered.

“Yes, I’ve always wanted to live by the ocean,” Dean chimed in.

Gabriel fixed his eyes on Dean with a stare that unsettled the dryad’s stomach and made him want to flinch away. “Hurricane season is starting soon. You don’t want to be at sea-level when that happens.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?” Dean asked, rising. “Because I’m not going to stand by and let you drain whatever is left of Castiel’s Grace into the river because you’ve ‘got a plan’ that might work, if we’re very, very lucky; _maybe_. That’s not a plan, Gabriel. It’s a death sentence.”

“You know,” Castiel began, taking Dean’s hands in his own, “I wouldn’t die. I’d just be human.” He closed his eyes. “There are worse things to be, you know.”

“This is bigger than any of us, Dean-o,” Gabriel sighed, and Dean was quite sure that if Castiel hadn’t been holding his hands, he’d have tried to strangle the archangel right then and there. “Don’t you think other angels would want nothing more than to be reunited with their loved ones? To come down from the mountain, to stop sifting endlessly through the wreckage of Heaven and just live and love and enjoy the feeling of being alive, as they’ve always dreamt of doing? Do you think it brings me any joy to see my brothers and sisters toil endlessly, sorting through one ruined hall after another and barely finding enough to sustain this fragile peace we’ve brokered, here in this forest?”

“You want to know what I think?” Dean asked. “I think you’ve got a beef with Michael and you are willing to destroy everything and everyone in your path just to drive the dagger of your petty, petty revenge deeper.”

“Dean,” Castiel spoke, voice little more than a whisper. “As much as I love you, this is my choice to make.”

And Dean, furious, walked out of the door and into the pounding rain, the fallen flower petals slowly making their way back to ground reminding him at once of everything he’d already lost, and all that he’d yet to lose.

He pictured the last of Castiel’s Grace, shining so tenuously, little more than a tremulous pulse of light, of life – being poured into the river that he’d been bound to for a hundred years; more. He pictured Gabriel muttering the incantation that would render the drinking water into something that could make the other dryads remember with a single sip. He saw himself, cradling Cas as he fell to his knees, weakened, and he knew in that moment that he had to think of a Plan B – and quickly.

***

Castiel found him sitting by the foot of the tree, lost in a spinning maelstrom of thoughts and emotions that he couldn’t quite begin to tame.

“Dean,” Castiel spoke, voice tinged with an urgency Dean couldn’t place.

“Do you remember the night we met?” Dean asked quietly.

Castiel decided to humor him for a moment, and settled down beside Dean. “How could I forget?”

“You asked me a question, that night. You looked at me and said, ‘ _Don’t you think you deserve to be saved_ ,’ and I’m asking you the same question, now. Don’t you think you deserve more than this? More than bleeding your Grace dry on the off-chance this might work? Don’t you think you are owed that much at least?”

For a long moment, Castiel was silent. Dean was beginning to give up on receiving an answer when Castiel spoke. “You have sacrificed yourself countless times to save your brother, have you not? How can I not do the same for my brethren?”

Dean’s eyes found Castiel’s. There was a hunger in their gaze that hadn’t been there before. “There’s no stopping you, is there?”

Castiel shook his head. Dean leaned into his angel, pressing their foreheads together.

“This could kill you, couldn’t it?” Dean whispered, tears gathering at the edges of his vision. Gently, so gently, Castiel reached up to wipe them away.

“Yes,” Castiel said, seeing no point in lying. “But the odds are in my favor.”

“I don’t think I’d be able to stand it,” Dean breathed. “Losing you.”

Castiel closed the distance between them, his lips finding Dean in a frantic tangle of lips and tongue and teeth.

Dean’s eyes fluttered open when they pulled away. His desire and his fear both made him reckless, and he pulled Castiel on top of him. “I want you,” he said, voice husky.

Lips quirking up in a half-smile, Castiel settled himself in Dean’s lap. “I don’t think you can possibly want me,” he said, “even half as badly as I want you.” With one smooth motion, he made Dean’s legs fall open and ground their hips together, drawing a ragged groan from Dean.

“Cas,” Dean hissed.

“We have to be discreet,” Castiel answered.

Dean seemed to surface from the fog of his lust long enough to realize that they were out in the open, completely exposed. It wasn’t hard to imagine someone coming across them. Dean momentarily lost his nerve, but then his eyes fell upon Castiel, lips slightly parted and still shining, and he could not help but lean in for another kiss.

“I can be quiet,” he whispered in Castiel’s ear once they parted, drawing a shiver from the other. “Can you?”

Castiel seemed to take this as a challenge and shifted on Dean’s lap, the delicious little bit of friction it offered forcing a quick, pleasured gasp from Dean’s lips. Eyes taking on a determined glint, Dean reached between them and palmed Castiel’s growing desire through the material of his tunic for a moment before lifting the offending garment, tugging the other’s loincloth away, and wrapping his hand firmly around the length of Castiel’s hardness.

He hesitated, then. His body seemed to know the motions, but his mind rebelled. “This is… My first time. With a man, I mean.”

“I know,” Castiel said gently, taking Dean’s face in his hands. “This might be your first time with me, but I assure you we’ve made love many times before. In another life.” He seemed to grow melancholy for a moment, and Dean frowned. The momentary panic eased, and he moved with a new determination.

“No,” he said, voice insistent. “None of that, now. I’m here, now, and we’re going to show each other just how much we’ve missed this,” he said, punctuating each word with a stroke of the other’s length.

Castiel threw his head back, a quiet moan breaching his lips every once in a while.

It wasn’t nearly enough for Dean, and he ran his hands down Castiel’s thighs teasingly, prompting the angel to look down at him at once.

“Two can play this game, Dean,” he said with a little smirk, leaning in to steal a series of kisses, first a chaste, almost playful one from Dean’s lips, before pressing a gentle kiss upon the corner of Dean’s smile, and working his way down to Dean’s neck.

“Angel,” Dean groaned, relishing the way Castiel’s eyes shone at they fell upon him. “The longer we draw this out, the more likely it is that someone’s gonna find us.”

“Hmm,” Castiel said, seeming to consider. “All the more reason to take this slow,” he purred, just above the dip of Dean’s collarbone.

“Cas, please,” Dean begged, trying to keep his voice to a whisper as Castiel did something clever with his hands below his waist. From the feel of it, Castiel was lining up their cocks so they were pressed, rigid and wanting, against each other. Then Castiel took both of them in hand and began to stroke, lingering at the head before gently sliding back down, and Dean let out a long, trembling moan.

“I thought you were going to keep quiet,” Castiel teased, drawing away for a moment to spit on his palm before returning to the task at hand. “Or do I need to make you?”

Castiel twisted his hand just so, and Dean began to pant. “No fair,” he mumbled. “You know every inch of me, but-” Dean found himself silenced with a rough, dominating kiss, and his wandering mind was dragged back into the present moment. The assault of pleasure was nearly too much for him to handle, and he moaned wantonly into Castiel’s kiss. “Cas,” he managed to gasp between kisses. “Feels so good,” he added. “So right.”

The angel had been mostly silent up until now, but he could help but groan at Dean’s words. “Yes,” he hissed. “So good. I’ve missed this; I’ve missed you.”

“Oh, God, Cas, I’m so close,” Dean said when Castiel changed the angle of his strokes and began to pick up the pace.

“Me too,” Castiel panted. He leaned down for a final kiss. “That’s it,” he soothed when they pulled away. Dean was flushed and looked utterly wrecked, and Castiel couldn’t have found words for how beautiful he was in that moment if he’d tried. “Come for me, Dean.”

Dean was helpless but to obey, and he came, biting down hard on his lip to stifle the burgeoning shout of pleasure lingering in his throat. Castiel stroked him through his release, and followed him over the edge just moments later before sinking down on top of Dean.

They laid like that in the glow of the aftermath for a little while, Castiel with his head pressed to Dean’s chest, listening to the gentle thrum of the other’s heartbeat.

A light drizzle began, and quickly gave way to a heavier downpour.

Dean looked at Castiel, the last vestiges of the pleasurable haze that had descended over him fleeing like the fog after dawn. “We should go check on Sam,” he said.

“Stay with me a moment longer,” Castiel begged. It began to rain harder still. “I don’t want this moment to end,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut and forcing himself to rise despite every inch of him protesting that he wanted to stay in the warmth of Dean’s arms just a minute more.

Dean’s mind was already elsewhere, but it occurred to Cas that this might be his last chance to speak to the other as he the angel was, rather as the all-too-human man he was about to become.

So he watched Dean get up in the now-pouring rain, and took hold of the dryad’s shoulders, eyes boring into Dean’s. “Whatever happens next,” he began, taking a deep breath to steady himself, “I want you to know that I loved you. More than Heaven, more than the Earth. More than any other living thing ever to walk upon this world.”

Dean blushed deeply, and he met Castiel’s gaze and said, “I know.”

Their bodies gravitated together once more, and their lips met in one final, chaste kiss. Then they parted and went their separate ways, Dean towards his brother and Gabriel, and Castiel downhill, past the tree-line, to the edge of the river, where the water raged and roiled.

He sunk once last time to the bottom, to the river bed where he’d lain for the past hundred years, mourning the fast-fading ghost of a world that had come and gone, singularly and utterly alone. Now, he stared up at the surface, eyes flooding with tears, and he lamented the pettiness of his dreams, which had all gone to ruin.

Out in the wilds of this world, Castiel wept for all that had yet to be done.


	12. In Folly Ripe, In Reason Rotten

Sam didn’t surface for two more days. Gabriel refused to leave his side, and neither Dean’s demands for him to leave nor Michael’s final, menacing prayer nor Mary’s promises of food and drink could convince him to cease his vigil.

“Gabriel?” Was the first word on Sam’s lips when he awoke, and the archangel grinned.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Gabriel asked, voice urgent.

Sam’s eyes fluttered shut. “I was dying,” he said, “again. You were there, and Dean was too.”

Gabriel pressed his forehead against Sam’s. “So you remember everything,” he breathed, relief evident in the way the tension he’d been carrying around his shoulders like a second skin finally began to release him from its clutches.

Neither of them saw Dean exit the house, one hand hovering over his mouth as if willing himself not to be sick.

***

Castiel sat by the edge of the river, dagger in one hand, a flower that had fallen in his pocket from Dean’s tree clenched in the other. The flower wasn’t part of the spell, which was so simple it only required two tangible ingredients – the river, his Grace, and the words that would bind them forever – but it brought him great comfort to have something of Dean’s, something borne by his soul and part of its physical manifestation in the world.

Slowly, he dragged the blade across his wrist, watching as the last of his Grace began to flow out of him and started its descent towards the waters. “Darsar a zodinu,” he spoke, voice growing louder with the strength of his conviction as his Grace met with the water and began to boil, “let par papnor – tol.”

When the last of what had made him an angel was gone, he fell to his knees, and crawled towards the river he knew so well. He’d sustained her, and her plants and fish and the wildlife that came to drink of her sweet, sweet waters, and he knew, even past the haze of grief and the hollowness in his heart where once had been such devoutness, such divinity; that the river would carry him home.

***

Dean ran to the river, jumping over exposed roots and fallen branches. His body knew the motions, even if his mind rebelled against this strange new world.

“Castiel,” he called, voice hoarse from breathlessness. “Cas, Sammy remembered everything. Til the day he died.” He began to pace. “Why don’t I remember? What went wrong? Cas, please.”

But Castiel didn’t surface, and it took Dean a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the sunlight streaming off the water. It was only then he saw Castiel’s tunic, caught on a rock outcropping at the edge of the river.

Slowly, Dean approached it, feeling like he’d done something similar, in another time, in another place, on another world, in another life.

With great care, he freed the tunic from the outcropping, pulled it out of the water, folded it, and held it close to his chest.

A distant part of him wanted to scream, but there was a larger part of him that was awakening, as if a great number of doors had been thrown open all at once in the library of his mind.

As he looked down at the tunic in his hands, Dean Winchester’s two lives slotted perfectly in place – like the closing of a zipper, or the pull of two magnets – and he remembered everything in stunning detail.

He held the tunic tighter. Castiel always came back to him. The end of the world itself couldn’t keep them apart.

***

“Tell the other dryads to go to the river,” Dean said as soon as he entered the little dwelling which suddenly seemed far too small with the three of them crammed inside. He was on the verge of losing the quick-fraying thread of his self-control, and wanted nothing more than to be alone with his thoughts. “It’s done,” he said, meeting Gabriel’s eyes.

“Already?” Gabriel asked. “That wasn’t the plan…”

Dean was tired of hearing about the plans and schemes and men and angels. “I don’t suppose him dying was part of your ‘plan’ either,” he said, thrusting the tunic towards Gabriel.

The archangel noticed then that Dean’s eyes were rimmed with red, and he looked at Sam. “I’m sorry,” he said to them, hanging his head. He made to take the tunic from Dean’s outstretched hands, but the other refused to relinquish it.

“Just go,” Dean said, disgust coloring every syllable. “Please. Just… Go.”

“Dean,” Sam tried. “I-”

“Go to the river, Sammy,” Dean said, eyes filling with tears. “You’ll remember both of your lives. You’ll be…” he looked at Gabriel meaningfully. “ _Complete_.”

Sam tried to speak, but Gabriel made a shushing motion that Dean was distantly grateful for.

Silently, Sam followed Gabriel out of the dwelling. 

The door closed. Dean sank to the floor, blessing its hardness and the way it didn’t give an inch under the pounding of his fists. He thanked whatever powers he still believed in that his tears softened it as he wept, and finally, he cradled his muddied hands and sobbed until his eyes were red and puffy.

A knock sounded at the door, and a desperate spark of hope ignited within Dean’s chest.

“Hello?” He called out, feeling that reckless hope fizzle and die on its ricocheting path about in his rib-cage when the door swung open to reveal his mother. “Mom,” he breathed.

“Dean,” Mary said. “I…” Something about her had changed, but Dean couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “I was at Ryder’s house when a spirit he’d never seen before led us both to the river. I… I remember.” She smiled at him. “Two lives, one mind. It’s all a bit new.” She knelt down on the ground before Dean, took her son’s cheek in her hand, caressing it gently. “My son,” she said. “I know I haven’t always been the mother you needed. In another life…” She shook her head as if to clear the fog of memories that had settled in her mind’s eye. “But I’m here now.”

And so Dean let his mother rest his head upon her lap, and allowed her to soothe him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

***

Castiel never got a chance to know whether or not the door that led unto Heaven would open for him, as the gate that protected the entryway didn’t yield.

He wrapped his fingers around the gilded bars and shook. He’d wanted to make sure, and this – this was proof enough. The gate opened for every angel, but no man or woman whose feet had ever touched the ground of this Earth.

That was all he was, now. A man. Nothing more, nothing less.

Smiling up at the sky, Castiel laughed. He willed a wind to blow, but the elements did not respond to him as they used to.

He was just a man. The river had delivered him here, but he could no longer feel her movements as though they were his own.

He would sleep on dry ground, tonight – but first, there were many miles to travel upstream.

With one last look at the door through the golden gate, he pressed a kiss onto his palm and pressed his hand onto the center of the gate, where a key would go, and turned around. He doubted he’d come here again anytime soon – not for another lifetime, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Castiel's words are Enochian for “Where the waters rage, let them remember - everything.”


	13. All The Pleasures Prove

The sun was setting, casting the world into a riot of golden and russet shadows.

The tangled web of hope Dean had woven by the river bank over the sight of Castiel’s tunic was becoming undone moment by moment. With every passing shadow that faded away into oblivion, every small fraction the sun set by, each sign of the forest preparing itself for sleep, Dean’s dreams of seeing Castiel again were whisked away by a wind that was blowing in from the west, making its way towards the sea. 

Darkness was nearly upon them, but the forest was alive with laughter and the sounds of happy reunion from angels overjoyed to see the humans they’d loved remember them for the first time in a lifetime, and dryads whose senses had newly awakened, both of their lives juxtaposed perfectly atop one another, like the pages of two separate books becoming one story, or two decks of cards being shuffled together into one cohesive whole.

Dean was just about to light a fire when a voice from the shadows softly called to him.

“Cas?” Dean breathed. He’d know that voice anywhere in either life. But Castiel’s call seemed distant, so Dean hastily doused the fire, did a quick check to make sure the embers were dead, and ran towards the trees. “Castiel!” He called out. “Cas! Where are you?”

The other’s calls were drawing closer, and Dean broke into a sprint when he saw the angel’s shadow in the half-light.

He misjudged his pace and Castiel’s strength, and they both went tumbling onto the forest floor when Dean flung himself in the other’s arms.

Castiel made a soft sound of surprise, and every part of him wanted to wrap his wings around Dean, protect him, cradle him, but he contented himself with throwing his arms around Dean as they came to a stop.

“You’re alive,” Dean laughed, pressing a kiss to Castiel’s lips, then one to each eyelid, cradling the other’s face in his hands as if he were something infinitely precious and eminently breakable. “I knew it,” Dean said, collapsing on the former’s angel’s chest. “I knew you’d come back.”

“Of course I did,” Castiel said, smiling even though there had been more than a few moments when he’d thought he’d be better off sinking to the river bottom and giving up on this forsaken world, giving into the unconscious that had threatened to overtake him more than once, giving the last of him to the river – but it had been the thought of Dean that had brought him back from the cusp each and every time. “I had something to live for,” he said, leaning down to kiss Dean once more.

Laughing despite the presence of Castiel’s lips against his own, Dean kissed back as well as he could, body feeling like a livewire overflowing with a mix of relief and joy and the feeling of being beloved. “Cas,” Dean said, once he could breathe again.

“Dean,” Cas replied.

“I didn’t know it until you were gone – I didn’t realize until I thought you were… That you were dead – that I loved you. And then I remembered.”

Castiel’s eyes grew wide. “Everything?”

Dean grinned. “Everything.”

***

After checking Castiel’s pulse, peering into his eyes, and spinning him around until he was dizzy, Gabriel declared that Castiel was now completely, irrevocably human.

“I’m sorry to have asked this of you, brother,” Gabriel said, after a long silence. Sam wrapped an arm around his lover’s shoulder, and the archangel welcomed the comfort.

“I wouldn’t have done it if I was unprepared for the consequences,” Castiel said, smiling at Dean, who went to his beloved and sat beside him. “And listen,” he bid them. They all fell silent. Even though the last light had faded from the sky hours ago, the forest was still alight with tiny fires, enough to rival the light of the moon. All across the Wilds of Battlegrave, families and lovers who had been separated for decades were being reunited. The high-pitched laughter of angels rang through the trees, and it was evident from the soft sounds of love-making echoing from a distance that more than one pair of angels and dryads had had the same idea.

Everyone waited in the quiet for Castiel to speak again.

“I have made our brothers and sisters whole again,” he finally said. “I’ve caused them so much pain over the past few hundred years,” he whispered, hanging his head. “It was the least I could do.”

“I think I speak for all of us when I say you’re forgiven,” Gabriel said, disentangling himself from Sam’s embrace and kneeling before Castiel, pressing their foreheads together and placing both of his hands on Castiel’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” Castiel breathed.

After a long moment, they drew apart. “As a human, you won’t live as long as a dryad,” Gabriel said.

“But-” Dean tried to protest, looking stricken.

“I can and I will slow down your aging. You and Dean could grow old together,” Gabriel said, plowing on as if Dean hadn’t spoken.

“Oh,” Castiel said, as if he hadn’t been expecting this small kindness.

Gabriel winked at him and raised his fingers to snap. “It’s the least I can do,” he said, echoing Castiel’s earlier sentiment.

“Thank you,” Castiel whispered, eyes filling with tears. “Thank you.”

With a snap, Gabriel fulfilled his promise.

Castiel looked down at himself, and his newly human body. “I don’t feel any different,” he noted.

  
“Of course not,” Gabriel said. He smiled, and produced a shard of a mirror from a fold of his tunic. “Here,” he said, thrusting it towards Castiel.

With a care that bordered on reverence, Castiel took the mirror, and gasped at his reflection. The lines that betrayed his age had disappeared, and his face was once again as smooth and unmarred as Dean’s. One hand flew up to touch the dewy-looking skin of his face, and he smiled.

“Thank you,” he breathed. “A thousand times; thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Gabriel said. He took Sam’s hand and turned to leave. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I think we all have some lost time to make up for.”

Dean looked at Cas with hungry eyes, and if either he or Castiel had been able to look away from the other, they’d have noticed Sam looking at Gabriel in much the same manner.

The soft sound of the door sliding into place made Dean smile. “We’re finally alone,” he said, voice dropping into a rough whisper.

“Yes,” Castiel whispered. “It seems that we are.”

That was the last either of them spoke for a while, so consumed were they by one another’s lips. Castiel’s roving hands wandered up and down the length of Dean’s spine, and Dean’s hands held onto the juts of Castiel’s hips. It briefly occurred to him to wonder how the other had arrived clothed, but then Castiel did something clever with his tongue and Dean lost the resolve to ask.

Panting, they drew away for breath, but only for a long enough for Castiel to slip Dean’s tunic over his head and push him down onto the cot. Dean started to slip Castiel’s tunic off, but only got so far as undoing the cinch at the top before Castiel was upon him again, kissing him like he was the only sacred thing left in all of Creation.

“Cas,” Dean gasped, pulling away to breathe. “Slow down. Let’s make this last.”

Frowning, Castiel smoothed a stray lock of hair out of Dean’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Dean. Being human is…. Intense,” he settled on. “And I’ve missed you. Oh, how I’ve missed you.”

He settled back on his knees and pulled his tunic over his head, and Dean took advantage of the moment he spent reveling at the feeling of the cool evening air on his heated skin to reverse their positions.

“I don’t want to fuck you,” Dean purred, leaving Castiel only a moment to be confused by the evidence to the contrary before he added, “I want us to make love.” Then, he blushed deeply, and leaned down to capture Castiel’s lips in a gentle kiss to hide the evidence of his momentary embarrassment.

“I want that too,” Castiel whispered when they parted, rolling his hips up to meet Dean’s.

Dean groaned at the contact. “Cas,” he hissed. “Oh,” he said, startled when Castiel began to suck on his collarbone, “I’ve missed you, too,” he said, cradling Castiel’s neck in one hand and brushing his thumb over the spot just below Castiel’s ear that made the former angel shiver in delight. He ran his hand down the other’s clavicle, splayed his hand across Castiel’s pec and brushed his fingers over the other’s nipple until it hardened under his touch.

“More,” Castiel said. “I want – I need – more of you,” he pleaded, wriggling under Dean until their clothed cocks aligned. The friction was delicious, and he moaned.

“Shh,” Dean soothed. “Patience,” he added, teasingly, reaching between them to palm Castiel’s length and relishing the little noise of appreciation Castiel made at the contact.

They kissed, each battling for dominance over the other, until Castiel tilted his head back and groaned, surrendering himself to his lover.

Dean nibbled along the length of Castiel’s collarbone, sending shivery sparks down the length of his stomach. He writhed beneath Dean, who took pity on him and slipped his leg between Castiel’s to allow the other to rut against him.

“You look so beautiful like this,” Dean murmured, kissing his way down Castiel’s abdomen. “So desperate for me,” he observed, relishing the way Castiel hissed as he took him in hand.

“Dean,” Castiel groaned. “Oh-” he said, moaning as his hips rose and fell to the rhythm Dean had set. “I need-”

“I know what you need, angel,” Dean soothed. Castiel let his eyes slip shut at the pet name, one he no longer deserved to be called by. His body went still, and Dean slowed in his ministrations. “Don’t go there, Cas; you’ll always be my angel,” Dean whispered.

Castiel nodded, desperate for more – more of the sweet friction Dean was providing against his aching length, more of his lover’s slow, sultry kisses, more words of reassurance and adoration.

“My angel,” Dean repeated, seeming to understand Castiel’s desires. “I love you. I always have, I always will – I could live a thousand lifetimes and fall in love at the sight of you in every one.”

Castiel made a low, keening noise as he approached his orgasm, but Dean knew how to play his body like an instrument and let go just as he thought he could stand no more. “Dean,” he gasped. “Please.”

“Shh,” Dean whispered. “I’ve got you, angel.” And then he was gone, just for a moment, leaving the bed feeling cold and Castiel feeling hollow inside. The moment passed, though, and Dean returned, body warm against Castiel’s own. Only then did Castiel’s eyes fly open, and he groaned at the sight of Dean pouring oil out of a little jar. “I’ll go slow,” Dean promised, using his fingers to drizzle some of the oil between Castiel’s splayed legs, starting at his cock and working his way down until his fingers found the former angel’s hole, which fluttered at the warm, welcome touch.

“I trust you,” Castiel said, bracing himself for the intrusion.

Dean laughed gently. “Then relax,” he said, breath ghosting against Castiel’s length. He pressed a soft kiss to the tip, and Castiel was so distracted by the feeling that he hardly noticed the first slick finger slip into his entryway. Dean crooked his fingers, searching for that tiny bundle of nerves that would make Castiel see sparks. He could tell he’d found it by the way Castiel’s hips lifted off the bed, his back arching in a perfect curve.

“More,” Castiel demanded, adding a breathy, “please” to the end only as an afterthought.

“Almost,” Dean promised, slowly working in a second finger, then a third. He took great care to brush against the other’s prostate every so often, keeping him on the knife edge of orgasm, but not letting him tumble over.

“Please,” Castiel repeated. “I need you.”

Dean smiled up at him, and Castiel couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were like twin stars – deep, green, shining things that never failed to captivate him and take his breath away. “You ready, angel?” He asked gently.

“Yes,” Castiel moaned, drawing out the final consonant. He was almost impossibly eager, hips rising and falling and meeting the thrust of Dean’s fingers rocking in and out of him, bringing him infinitesimally closer to the pleasure he craved and the union of their bodies that he so desperately desired.

At last, Dean readied himself at Castiel’s entrance, hovering there for a moment just to tease his lover. Then, in one smooth, steady motion, he sheathed himself.

Castiel cried out, the pleasure of it overwhelming his senses and making him lose all sense of propriety.

“Fuck,” Dean cursed, taking a moment to steady himself at the feeling of being inside of Castiel for the first time in a lifetime. “So good, Cas,” he breathed. “So fucking tight.”

“Dean,” Castiel whined, wiggling his hips in an attempt to get Dean to move inside him. It worked, because an instant later Dean was drawing almost all the way out and sliding back in, slowly at first, then faster.

“My beautiful angel,” Dean panted, thrusts becoming more and more unsteady. “My beloved.”

“Yes, yours,” Castiel agreed, his own breath beginning to come in ragged gasps at the feeling of their bodies meeting and the slick sounds of their love-making. “Always. Yours.”

Dean reached between them to take Castiel in hand. The smaller man threw back his head and groaned long and low. “Oh, yes, right there,” he moaned. “Dean!” He cried out, spilling into Dean’s hand as he came. Dean wasn’t far behind.

“So good, Cas,” Dean gasped. “So perfect. Love you… So much,” he added, hips snapping forward as he chased his orgasm, sheathed as he was inside his lover.

“I love you too,” Castiel whispered before raising one hand and bringing Dean in for a savage kiss. Dean was helpless in the face of such an onslaught of pleasures. He came hard, grunting out his pleasure and briefly collapsing on top of Castiel.

Eventually, he rolled over onto his side of the small, narrow bed, and held Castiel close to him in the aftermath.

For now, the dawn was still a while away, and as they let the haze of their love-making fade away, they kissed and whispered sweet nothings atop each other’s lips, content in one another’s company and secure in the love that united them.


	14. These Delights My Mind Might Move

In the distance, Gabriel could hear Michael calling their names. The sun was rising, and with it, the creatures of the forest.

“You don’t have to face him alone,” a voice from the tree-line rang out.

Castiel spun in place, and smiled at his brothers and sisters. A small band of angels, including Samandriel and Anna, stood in formation amongst the trees.

“Castiel! Gabriel!” Michael was almost upon them.

Castiel was torn between accepting the help of his brethren and telling them to save themselves, but it was Gabriel who made the choice for him, stepping forward with a tender smile on his face.

“Anael,” he greeted. “I knew a nephilim had been conceived last night,” he said, approaching her carefully. “Has Ryder blessed you with a child?”

“Yes,” Anna breathed, hands fluttering over her stomach. “I can feel her already.”

Gabriel turned to Samandriel. “Take her away. If this thing goes wrong…” He let his voice trail off, hoping the other angel would catch his meaning. “This is my fight,” he said, jaw working as he turned to each of his little brothers and sisters in turn. “Go. All of you. Go to your beloveds.”

The angels nodded their agreement and retreated into the gloom of the forest in the pre-dawn light.

“That means you, too, Cassie,” Gabriel said, turning to his favorite brother.

“No,” Castiel insisted. “We stand and fight. Together. Like it’s always been.” Castiel’s eyes shone as they searched Gabriel’s.

“Castiel, I don’t need to remind you that you’re human, now, do I? Michael could rip you apart like this,” he said, snapping to demonstrate. “Go.”

In the end, Gabriel didn’t leave him any choice in the matter, shoving him forward. Castiel yelped as he fell, but he landed on something soft a great distance away, within sight of Sam and Dean’s dwelling.

“Cas!” Dean’s voice sounded loud in the morning light, which was just beginning to filter through the treetops. “Where were you?”

“And where is Gabriel?” Sam asked, emerging from the structure a moment after his brother.

And, shaking his head in half in despair and half in disbelief, Castiel told them everything that had transpired. Below them, the ground began to tremble. “He’s here,” Castiel said. “Michael’s come down from the mountain.”

***

“Gabriel,” Michael greeted. “You needn’t have sent the others away. I’m not here to fight.”

“Oh,” Gabriel said. One hand was clenched behind his back, archangel blade in hand, singing for blood to be spilt.

Sighing, Michael raised his hands, as if in surrender. “If you want it to end this way, I’m more than ready for this wretched existence to be over.” He approached Gabriel with slow, deliberate steps. “Go on. Draw your blade, brother. I swear I’m more than half in love with death.” He stopped just inches away from Gabriel. Only then did he spread his arms. “Go ahead. Do it.”

Gabriel placed his blade between them, but made no motion to use it. “Why are you here, Michael?”

Michael blinked. “I’m here,” he said, quietly, “to congratulate you on doing what I failed to do.”

Gabriel lowered his blade an inch, then raised it two, suspicion coloring his every feature. “What do you mean?”

“I mean – haven’t you felt it? The nephilim? The child of our sister?” Michael sighed, and took a step back, then another. “Don’t you understand? A nephilim could be the salvation of us all. We could…. Rebuild. There could be more to this forsaken world than just this forest, and the mountain range that borders it. I couldn’t see it. A future. Not without… Without Adam,” he finished, choking on those final few words. “But now, I can. So I came. To thank you. And to apologize. For doubting you.”

Gabriel let his blade go slack, and slowly sheathed it. “Oh,” he said. It was all he could say for a long, abyssal moment of silence. “Oh,” he repeated.

“Gabriel,” Michael said, rushing forward once more. Gabriel’s stance stiffened, but he allowed the sudden motion. “I know I haven’t always been the best brother to you.”

At that, Gabriel scoffed. “That’s the understatement of the ages,” he observed.

“Yes,” Michael agreed. “But I like to think that I could do better. If you’d let me try.”

“We’ve spent the last few millennia at each other’s throats,” Gabriel observed, not daring to voice the fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, it would be worth it to try.

“That we have,” Michael agreed. “But we don’t have to spend another moment fighting.”

Gabriel didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Michael was close enough to touch, and he longed to bury himself in the other’s arms, as he might have as a newly created being, back before everything went wrong. “You know, I think that’s where you’re mistaken. Families fight. Even happy families. Granted, most of them don’t spend thousands of years doing so or try to start an apocalypse simply because it was ordained by an absent father.” He shrugged. “But if you’re ready to call the truce, so am I.”

Michael stuck out his hand, and Gabriel stared down at it. “Humans used to do this,” he explained. “It’s called ‘shake on it,’ and it’s very useful.” He shuffled his feet when Gabriel made no move to reciprocate. “Adam taught me,” he added, very quietly.

That was all Gabriel needed to hear. He took Michael’s hand in his own and they shook on it for a little longer than strictly necessary. Michael didn’t seem to be planning on stopping anytime soon, so Gabriel pulled him in for a hug.

“Oh,” Michael said, gasping half in surprise and half in delight at being in Gabriel’s warm arms. “This is nice,” he noted, wrapping his arms around his little brother and smiling. “It’s been a long time since…”

“Shh,” Gabriel soothed him. “I know,” he said, as Michael started to cry. “I know,” he repeated, hoping that his touch would be a comfort to Michael even as words failed him.

Slowly, Gabriel lowered them to the good and giving ground, the land that had sustained the last fragments of humankind. He held Michael as he wept, rubbing a soothing hand along the other’s back.

“I’m here, Michael,” Gabriel whispered. “I’m here, now.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever said ‘I’m sorry,’” Michael whispered.

Gabriel didn’t speak for a long moment. “You’re my brother,” he said, quietly. “You’re forgiven.”

***

Sam didn’t give Gabriel a chance to get a word in edgewise before he flung himself at the archangel, who just barely withstood the sudden assault.  
  


“You’re alive,” Sam gushed. “I thought Michael, he’d…” Sam let his voice trail off; what he’d

thought Michael would do was simply too horrible to put into words.

“He just wanted to talk,” Gabriel said, glancing at the incredulous stares of the others and shrugging as if he, too, were in disbelief. “I think your brother taught him that words can sometimes speak louder than actions.” He shook his head. “I know Adam would have been proud of Michael.”

Sam and Dean both bowed their heads, and a silent agreement passed between the four of them. No one spoke as they observed a moment of silence for their lost half-brother, but Gabriel held onto Sam tighter and Cas slung an arm around Dean’s shoulder.

“What now?” Dean asked, finally breaking the silence.

Castiel turned to him and placed a gentle hand on his cheek. “We live,” he began. “And we love, and we laugh and we remember what came before and dedicate ourselves to building something better – we find great and lasting truths, we forge an unshakable peace that will not be swayed by Heaven or Earth, and we remake the world in its image.”

Dean smiled, so bright it reminded Castiel of the sun breaking over the waters of the river at sunrise. He could not help but return the gesture, and as Dean leaned in to kiss him, he thought there was no greater feeling in the world than being enveloped in the arms of his beloved.

He might have taken the long way ‘round, but in the end, every road he’d ever taken had led him back to where he belonged – into the warm, loving arms of a certain Dean Winchester.


	15. Epilogue: To Live With Thee and Be Thy Love

Thirty-Three Years Later:

“You know,” Castiel began, one morning when he and Dean both found themselves up before first light, only the warm glow of tiny fires scattered throughout their abode to cast one another’s features into the light. “I still can’t help but look at you every day and see a miracle,” he murmured.

Only the slightest of blushes paraded itself briefly across Dean’s visage, and departed as quickly as it had come; he’d gotten used to such little gestures and words of love, and though he never failed to appreciate them, he had long since learned not to get flustered, as he had in the first days and weeks and years of their marriage.

“Has anyone ever told you,” Dean parried, “that your eyes are as blue as the sky, and bluer still?”

Castiel pretended to ponder this for a moment. “I recall hearing something similar from my husband, perhaps – oh – five moons ago?”

Feigning surprise, Dean said, “You’re a married man? I wouldn’t have known from the way you _ravaged_ me last night.” He laid an over-dramatic hand over his forehead.

“Maybe that’s because I find something new to love about you every day,” Castiel returned, suddenly serious once more.

Dean smiled and sauntered over to his lover. “How about we test that out?”

Castiel groaned in dismay. “As much as I’d love to, Gabriel said there’s a very important errand I must complete in the lowlands to the west. It’s about a quarter of a day’s ride each way.”

“Mmm,” Dean said. “And just how important is this errand?”

“Very much so,” Castiel replied, but he was momentarily distracted by the way Dean licked his lips and amended, “Well, probably rather important. I mean- Well, I suppose it could wait a few moments.” At this point, Dean was nibbling along his collarbone, one hand gently moving down the dip of Castiel’s waist. Castiel was quite distracted and growing more eager by the second.

“Give me an hour,” Dean said, pushing Castiel back onto the bed. At the feel of Dean’s need against his own, Castiel moaned and pushed their bodies even closed together.

Dean swooped down to steal a kiss, then another.

“We don’t have a clock,” Castiel protested between kisses.

Dean grinned. “All the better.”

And so it went. They made love, slowly, sweetly, yet still brimming with the same simmering passion that had united them throughout their lives.

And when Castiel showed up looking slightly ruffled at his meeting point with Gabriel, by the shore of the river he had spent so long submerged within, his brother just smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.

“The new settlements are all doing well. Another child is being born today – the child of two nephilim from the first generation born in the forest. Oh, and Michael is thinking of sending a few of us to scout some land further inland.” He summoned two horses with a long, echoing whistle. “All is well,” he said as they greeted their steeds with bits of carrot.

Wordlessly, they mounted their horses and set out into the rising sun, each lost in thoughts of the world not as it was or had been, but as it would be.


End file.
